Tulane University Libraries has signed an open access “publish and read” agreement with Elsevier, one of the largest publishers of scholarly journals in the world, publishing more than 2,600 titles. The agreement is among the first of its kind between Elsevier and an independent U.S. library negotiating outside of a large consortium.
The agreement covers the open article publication charges in Elsevier hybrid (subscription-funded) journals for Tulane primary authors who want their articles to be published as open access or publicly available. The full cost of these charges will be built into the annual journal subscription costs paid by the library. To allow for this, the library and publisher agreed to a four-year license term and sustainable caps on overall subscription costs during that period. Elsevier's journals and eBooks reside on a platform well known to researchers called ScienceDirect.
The number of article publication charges (APCs) to be “waived” each year was determined by the publication history of Tulane primary authors and includes a gradual ramp-up of waivers described as a bridge to full public access for articles by Tulane authors in years three and four of the term. We expect the bridge to be mitigated somewhat by the gradual embrace of the open access option by authors. Tulane will receive APC waivers on up to 76 or 50% of 153 projected articles in 2023, 119 or 75% of 159 projected articles in 2024, 165 or 100% of its projected articles in 2025, and 172 or 100% of its projected articles in 2026. The agreement takes effect on January 1.
For Tulane authors, this web site contains a wealth of information about the agreement and how it works: https://www.elsevier.com/open-access/agreements/tulane-university
This page provides a title list in which authors can verify which journals are covered: https://agreements.journals.elsevier.com/tulane-university
