U Michigan Wins 2 New Digital Humanities Grants
The University of Michigan (U-M) has received two new grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support digital scholarship in the humanities.
In
February 2016, the University of Michigan Press received a grant of
$28,000 for its "Mapping the Free Ebook Supply Chain" project. During
the year-long project, researchers will use qualitative and
quantitative metrics to study how readers discover and use free e-books.
At the conclusion of the project, the researchers will publish a
white paper and journal article with "recommendations about best
practices for ensuring discovery of free e-books and meaningfully
measuring their impact" and "an open-source Web survey application that
publishers can use to capture qualitative information about e-books
usage," according to information on the University of Michigan Press's
site.
U-M and Emory University are sharing a grant of $73,500 for the "Model Contract for Digital
Scholarship" project, which will develop "a model author-publisher
contract optimized for the publication of digital scholarship,"
according to a news release from U-M. The project is led by Emory's
scholarly communications office, and U-M faculty and administrators
will participate in consultative workshops and interviews.
When
the model contract is complete, it will be made "openly available along
with ancillary legal documents such as a sample permissions letter for
authors to use with third-party rights holders," according to U-M.
Last year, U-M received a grant of $899,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to build a new online publishing platform.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].