The American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the leading publisher of microbial science, has successfully met its sustainability target for the 2025 subscription year under its Subscribe to Open (S2O) publishing model. As a result, articles in the 2025 volume of ASM’s 6 S2O journals will be published open access, ensuring that scientists and stakeholders worldwide can freely access critical microbiology research.
As part of this model, Tulane authors have uncapped publishing in Tulane University Libraries (TUL) subscribed S2O journals, which means they can publish in any of the ASM's six s20 journals through 2025 without incurring article processing charges (APCs). Discounts are available for page charges and supplemental material fees. These journals include:
These articles will be published with full and permanent open access under a Creative Commons CC-BY license. For more information authors can check out these author FAQs. Article submissions and confirmation of eligibility are handled at the publisher's end, rather than by TUL.
Tulane University Libraries has negotiated similar agreements with other major publishers, including Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, American Chemical Society, and IOP Publishing. This ASM arrangement is a variation on the Publish + Read model.
Publishing open access in traditional subscription-based journals, such as those covered by this and our other transformative agreements, allows Tulane authors to continue publishing in high-impact, highly respected titles while also making their work more widely accessible, thereby meeting funding requirements. It has added importance because guidelines from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy now call for the results of all federally funded research to be freely available without paywalls.
