Opening the Future Quarterly Update
Posted by Tom Grady on Oct. 20, 2025 at 1021
Opening the Future Quarterly Update
It has, as ever, been a busy quarter at Opening the Future. First off, we are very pleased to announce that since our last regular update, we have hit the massive milestone of partnering with a third publisher, Michigan State University Press, joining CEU Press and Liverpool University Press, who both began implementing OtF back in 2021.
Michigan State University Press launched OtF this summer and already have their first support member
We are delighted to be partnering with Michigan State University Press, and supporting the Press in its publishing goals. Since its foundation in 1947, MSU Press has remained committed to its mission to catalyze intellectual, social and technological change via its publications. Additionally, the Press has been publishing titles OA since 2002, and is keen to expand its OA capacity. Our partnership, and the backlist package they have launched with, focuses on monographs on African studies and the African diaspora, black experience in America, colonial and post-colonial studies, politics, arts and literature - subjects for which MSU Press is well-known and regarded.
We are also very pleased to share that we now have our first confirmed supporter of MSU Press’ OtF program - Lafayette College. The Lafayette library has long been a supporter of the work of open publishing and open access and is excited to further its commitment to these goals by becoming a member of OtF. The library is confident that its support will strengthen the overall landscape of open publishing initiatives while simultaneously enhancing access to quality scholarly information through MSU Press. We and MSU Press are very grateful to them for taking the plunge!.
If your library would also like to invest in MSU Press’ backlist or frontlist books through OtF, details on the African and Diaspora Studies and OA Supporter packages are on the website where you can also pledge to sign up.
Newly Published and Forthcoming Books
Two OtF-funded titles have so far come out in 2025; Working in Music on the Semiphery by Emília Barna and The Great Depression in Eastern Europe, edited by Klaus Richter, Anca Mandru and Jasmin Nithammer, both published by CEU Press. Another six OtF-funded CEU Press books are due out later in 2025, or at the start of 2026 (some have been unexpectedly delayed in the publishing process).
We also eagerly anticipate the publication of Anticolonialism, race and violence in Basque radical nationalism (1892-1936) by Maria Reyes Baztán which is due out with Liverpool University Press early in the new year.
The Coming Quarter
We’re expecting another busy quarter taking us to the end of 2025, as we begin to plan in earnest what Opening the Future will look like after April 2026 when the Copim Open Book Futures project ends. We are in discussions with various mission-aligned organisations right now and hope to have more updates on this by the end of the year. We also have some exciting announcements in the works on more publishers taking up the model… watch this space for news.
As ever, we and the participating Presses are very grateful to all our library members for their financial support and for their feedback through the OtF Library Advisory Board and in other other forums.