The second institutional OA book deal for the publisher will advance shared goals for open research driving forwards OA for the books market
Springer Nature has signed its largest institutional OA book deal with the Max Planck Society through the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL). The agreement covers all Springer Nature book imprints, across a broad range of disciplines, providing OA funding to affiliated authors from over 80 Max Planck Institutes.
This agreement marks the fifth OA book partnership[1] and the second[2] and largest national OA book deal for the publisher to date[3] – a pivotal step in driving forward the sustainable transition to OA for book authors. With research showing that OA books are downloaded ten times more often and cited 2.4 times[4] more than non-OA books, Max Planck authors publishing as part of this agreement will benefit from even greater reach and impact of their work.
Speaking of the partnership Niels Peter Thomas, President Greater China & Managing Director Books, Springer Nature, said:
“Open research, across books, data and journal articles, is important to advancing discovery. The journey to sustainable OA publishing for books, however, is progressing at a slower pace to that of journals due to different complexities, awareness, policy and funding facing the community. As such we are delighted to have been able to extend our longstanding partnership with the MPDL to enable authors to publish their books OA, advance sustainable routes for OA book publishing, and strengthen our shared goals for open research. It marks a pivotal step in the support for OA books and we look forward to working with more partners to extend this commitment further.”
The initial three-year agreement, live as of 1st January 2022, will enable authors from all 86 Max Planck Institutes to receive a discount on the standard Book Publishing Charge (BPC) to publish their book OA. MPDL will contribute central funding toward the coverage of the discounted BPC, lowering the costs for authors even further. The discount and funding will be available across all of the publisher’s book imprints, under a CC BY licence, ensuring their work is freely accessible and discoverable to all communities across science, technology, medicine, the humanities and social sciences. They will be available to readers around the world via Springer Nature’s content platform SpringerLink.
Ralf Schimmer, Head of Information at the MPDL, commented:
“In establishing this new agreement with Springer Nature, we further advance one of our core missions – to support our authors in the dissemination of their research beyond the restrictions of paywalls. By covering a significant share of the open access book publication costs, we are enabling more of our authors to publish their work openly, increasing readership and impact, in particular for those disciplines where books play a crucial role in the scholarly communication process.”
Springer Nature continues to play an active role in the advancement of OA publishing for books through its deals and partnerships,supporting all authors, regardless of discipline, location or funding, to publish OA. The publisher is the largest OA book publisher andpioneer in OA book models since the launch of its OA books programme in 2012. Since then the publisher has published over 1,500 OA books, with its book chapters having been downloaded over 200 million times. [5]
More information on the agreement can be found here. More information on Springer Nature’s OA book publishing can be found here, and its additional partnerships such as that with the OAPEN Foundation to devise OA resources for book authors. The publisher’s wider commitment to open science can be found here and here.
