The University of California Libraries and Springer Science+Business Media (Springer) have concluded a ground-breaking experimental agreement to support open access publishing by UC authors. The arrangement is part of the journals license negotiated by the California Digital Library on behalf of the ten campuses of the University of California.
Under the terms of the agreement, articles by UC-affiliated authors accepted for publication in a Springer journal beginning in 2009 will be published using Springer Open Choice with full and immediate open access. There will be no separate per-article charges, since costs have been factored into the overall license. Articles will be released under a license compatible with the Creative Commons (by-nc: Attribution, Non-commercial) license. In addition to access via the Springer platform, final published articles will also be deposited in the California Digital Library's eScholarship Repository.
The University of California-Springer agreement is the first large-scale open access experiment of its type undertaken with a major commercial publisher in North America.
"UC faculty have told us that they want open access publishing options in order to increase the impact of their published work and eliminate barriers to educational and research use," said Ivy Anderson, Director of Collections for the California Digital Library, which licenses content on behalf of the University of California libraries. "Just as importantly, they want these options in the journals in which they routinely publish, without disrupting their normal research activity. The CDL agreement with Springer supports the transformation that our faculty seeks, while continuing the libraries' crucial role in facilitating access to research information. Springer is a leader among commercial publishers in open access experimentation, making it a natural partner for the University of California in this endeavor." ...
PS: In the past, Springer has struck similar deals with the Max Planck Society (blogged here February 2008), the University of Göttingen (October 2007), and the Dutch library consortium, UKB or Universiteitsbibliotheken en de Koninklijke Bibliotheek (June 2007).
Update (1/22/09). Also see Andrew Albanese's article in today's Library Journal Academic Newswire. Excerpt:
The announcement...clearly marks a watershed moment for the open access movement: it is the first large-scale open access licensing deal between a major, state-wide library in the United States and the world’s second largest commercial journal publisher --a deal that, if successful, could have a significant impact on the wider marketplace for scholarly journals.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
