University of Michigan Assumes Management of ACLS Humanities E-Book

(New York, New York) – The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) announces the transfer of the management and administration of the ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) to the University of Michigan, effective December 11, 2019.

After nearly two decades of managing HEB operations within the offices of ACLS in New York City, the transfer of the governance to Michigan Publishing will enable continued growth and development of this important resource within an organization focused on the dissemination of digital scholarship.

The HEB project began in 2002 as an effort to understand what the digital turn would mean for longform publishing in the humanities. Launched with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, it has evolved into an important 5,000+ e-book collection curated with ACLS member societies.  Revenue from subscriptions is shared with the rights holders based on the usage of the contributed works. Since 2005, the HEB collection has been distributed through Michigan Publishing. Over the past year, the collection has been migrated to Fulcrum, a Mellon-supported publishing platform created by the University of Michigan.

As it commences its second century of service, ACLS has established Strategic Priorities that will focus efforts and resources on supporting the work of the 75 member societies it represents, providing more than 300 fellowships in over 14 US and international programs, and working with colleagues across the academe in responding to urgent challenges facing humanistic scholarship in a rapidly changing environment.

“The E-book project serves rights holders and the scholars, teachers, and students at hundreds of subscribing institutions very well,” said ACLS President Joy Connolly. “By entrusting the care of this important community resource to the University of Michigan Publishing, we are confident that it will thrive. We will continue to work with our colleagues at Michigan to explore the future evolution of long-form publishing.”

“This is an exciting time for HEB, the University of Michigan, and the Fulcrum platform,” added Charles Watkinson, Director, University of Michigan Press and Associate University Librarian. “The confidence expressed by ACLS in the team here at the University of Michigan and our plans to continue to invest in the collection reflects the need for top quality scholarly books and monographs that meet librarian budgetary and academic needs.”