Cambridge University Press has reached a major Open Access agreement with the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, BSB) on behalf of higher education and research institutions across Germany.
The three-year ‘read and publish’ agreement has been concluded with the German academic library consortium, which represents research universities, universities of applied sciences, non-university research institutions and academic libraries.
The agreement was negotiated and coordinated by BSB with financial support from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).
Read and publish agreements pay for an institution to access a publisher’s journals and also cover the Article Processing Charges authors from that institution would normally pay to publish their work Open Access with that publisher.
Authors from institutions affiliated to the consortium can publish publicly-financed research articles in the Press’s hybrid journals. In addition, consortium members will have full access to their choice out of four prestigious collections of Cambridge University Press journals, depending on the institution.
It follows a ground-breaking read and publish agreement between the Press and the Bibsam consortium of Swedish higher education and research institutions in November. A similar agreement was struck with the UKB consortium of Dutch university libraries in May 2017.
Chris Bennett, Global Sales Director (Academic Publishing) at the Press, said: ‘This agreement is the latest in a series of read and publish deals to establish Open Access publishing in Cambridge journals for publicly-financed research articles. Together, they clearly demonstrate our determination to be at the forefront of building a sustainable, responsible transition to full Open Access on behalf of our authors, their institutions and those who fund them.’
Hildegard Schäffler, Head of Serials and Licensing at BSB, said: “We are delighted that we have been able to work with Cambridge University Press on the successful conversion of our long-standing consortium for Cambridge Journals into an innovative read and publish agreement and thus make an important contribution to the process of transition to full Open Access.”
Mandy Hill, Managing Director of Academic Publishing at the Press, said: ‘This and other recent agreements are part and parcel of our long-term commitment to Open Research – making scholarly publishing more accessible, while ensuring sustainability and quality for the academic community.’
