TOME supports the work of university presses by providing grants for scholarly monographs that are deserving of publication but increasingly difficult to publish due to market-based concerns.
TOME makes the work of humanities and social science faculty more widely available both inside and outside the academy, which advances the core mission of colleges and universities to create and transmit new knowledge for public benefit.
TOME’s mission is twofold: 1) to harness the potential of digital publishing technologies to increase access to book-length research in the humanities and social sciences and 2) to ensure the long-term economic viability of the scholarly publishing system.
To accomplish our mission we believe it is essential to change the way monograph publishing is funded. The reality is that university presses can no longer cover the costs of publishing specialized monographs through sales alone. Likewise, it is unreasonable to expect humanities and social sciences fields to adopt a STEM-style author-pays system. For these reasons, we believe that the only rational solution to the scholarly monograph dilemma is a system of institutionally funded faculty book subsidies that retains the same commitment to editorial excellence while guaranteeing global access through open access editions.
Of course, such a solution cannot be formulated and implemented overnight, which is why we seek partners and collaborators committed to fundamental change. TOME is eager to work with other open monograph initiatives that share the same vision of bringing together scholars, universities, libraries, and presses in pursuit of a common goal—a sustainable open monograph ecosystem. In short, TOME is a movement not a club.
Discover Research from TOME
Here you will find just a few of the latest monographs published with TOME funding.
TOME is part of a growing movement to open up scholarly research to the world. As such we support the work of other initiatives and, wherever possible, hope to collaborate with them.
The Sustainable History Monograph Pilot (SHMP) is a Mellon-funded initiative to publish open digital editions of high-quality books from university presses in the field of history.
Johns Hopkins Libraries Announce Recipients of First Tome Monograph Subvention Grants, Invite Applications for 2022/23 Grants
The first five recipients of a TOME monograph subvention grant have been selected to receive funding provided by the Johns Hopkins University Office of the Provost to support an open-access (OA) digital publication of a book they have written. The 2020–22 TOME Monograph Subvention Grant recipients are:
Peter Potter, ARL visiting program officer for TOME and director of publishing at Virginia Tech Publishing, and Sara Grimme, senior director of operations at Digital Science, consider the following question on the Digital Science Blog: What comes next for open access monographs as we cautiously start to envision life beyond COVID-19?
The 2021 TOME Annual Meeting will take place virtually on October 28, 2021. TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) is an initiative to advance the wide dissemination of scholarship by humanities and humanistic social sciences faculty members through open editions of peer-reviewed and professionally edited monographs. Event Details Date: Thursday, October 28, 2021 Time: 1:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. eastern […]
Congratulations to Hwisang Cho! The Power of the Brush has received honorable mention in the MLA Prize for a First Book category! Read the open access edition on @ManifoldScholar and/or buy the print copy: https://t.co/LkBaP4icrH @emorycollege @openmonographs @UWAPress @MLAnews
In this @digitalsci blog post, @peterpotter89 presents results from an @openmonographs survey on the state of #OA book publishing.
https://t.co/3XyNFUq8Zm
If you are an author, publisher, librarian, or administrator, we want to hear from you. Use this form to send your comments, questions, or suggestions to Peter Potter, ARL visiting program officer for TOME.
