With support from a two-year, $129,000 grant, the University of Kansas Libraries and the University Press of Kansas will convert out-of-print humanities texts into freely accessible digital resources. This project is part of the Humanities Open Book grant program led by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
“This grant offers the opportunity to advance several important priorities for the University of Kansas,” said Kevin L. Smith, dean of libraries. “The support from Mellon and NEH allows us to bring wider attention to some of the excellent scholarship in history and American political thought published by the University Press of Kansas.”
The grant is to be used over the next two years and will provide the university with a unique opportunity to digitize 70 humanities titles that would be otherwise inaccessible to the public. The proposed list of titles to digitize includes works that illuminate the history of important events; lives of important thinkers, like Leo Strauss, who continue to have a tremendous influence on modern political thought; and movements, including populism and political conservatism, that still shape American politics.