Tulane Libraries announce new agreement to broaden access to published research

The Tulane University Libraries have signed two Publish and Read agreements with two major scholarly journal publishers. Under these recent agreements, newly published articles by Tulane researchers appearing in any of nearly 500 academic journals from Cambridge University Press and the American Chemical Society (ACS) will now be freely available to all readers under an Open Access model. The transformative agreements represent a significant breakthrough in bringing Tulane’s leading-edge research to readers without restrictive paywalls or subscriptions and helps build new, more financially sustainable models of scholarly communication.

Scholarly publishing is undergoing rapid and fundamental change. High subscription fees for scholarly journals have strained library budgets worldwide, and prohibitive costs mean researchers in many institutions, especially in developing countries, have no access to studies that may have significant impacts. Many academic libraries have been lobbying for a new approach to scholarly communication that would reduce costs and open research results to all without additional fees.

Last fall, the campus-wide Scholarly Communications Committee, co-chaired by David Banush, Tulane’s Dean of Libraries and Academic Information Resources, and Dr. Giovanni Piedimonte, Tulane’s Vice President for Research, endorsed efforts to encourage Open Access publication in high-quality journals while simultaneously supporting more sustainable journal subscription pricing models.  

“Publish and Read models bring us closer to sustainability by combining subscription and Open Access article publication costs in a more neutral way that benefits the university as a whole,” said Andy Corrigan, Tulane's Associate Dean of Libraries and Chief Collections Officer, who played a central role in negotiating the agreements.

“Enabling broader access to Tulane’s outstanding research helps grow our institutional reputation,” said Piedimonte. “Agreements like these are important pieces of Tulane’s research and impact goals.”

The 400 Cambridge journals available span nearly all disciplines, including science, engineering, medicine, social science and the humanities. ACS subscriptions cover 65 journals focused on chemistry and related fields. All papers will be vetted by the peer review process traditionally employed by these journals, ensuring the quality and reliability the research community has come to expect from these publishers.

More information about Open Access publishing is available via a Tulane Library Guide on the topic.