For the year 2023, TIB has signed five new consortium agreements with an Open Access component. The agreements with the specialist societies and publishers Public Library of Science (PLOS), Optica, VDI Fachmedien, the American Chemical Society and the Royal Society enable scientists to publish (and read) articles in specialist journals free of charge.
By participating in these consortia, institutions cover the publication fees (APCs) for their researchers, which they would otherwise have to pay themselves if they published in Open Access. This means that TIB is running a total of 44 consortia in the current year, 16 of which include Open Access. The consortia offer is used by more than 300 institutions from all over Germany.
TIB and the Open Access publisher Public Library of Science (PLOS) have signed a two-year consortium agreement: This allows researchers to publish in all PLOS journals indefinitely and without article fees. ”This is the first time that TIB has negotiated a consortium agreement with a Gold OA publisher that is open to institutions across Germany," says Dr Irina Sens, Deputy Director of TIB. The consortium led by TIB has more than 40 members.
The TIB has signed an Open Access agreement with the publishing house VDI-Fachmedien for the specialist journal wt Werkstattstechnik online. From issue 01/02-2023, the journal will be published purely as an Open Access publication, so that in future all new articles will be immediately freely available. Scientists from participating institutions in Germany and Austria will be able to publish free of charge in the journal, which focuses on production and manufacturing technology, during the contract period from 2023 to 2025. In addition, users of the consortium members have access to the 22-year archive of wt Werkstattstechnik online via the VDI Verlag e-Library.
The three other consortia offers are transformative models, as both access rights and publishing services are covered. The two-year read & publish agreement with Optica Publishing Group (formerly OSA) is the first consortium agreement between the two parties. It provides access to leading optics and photonics journals for the users of the eight member institutions and allows associated authors to publish indefinitely in the hybrid and Gold OA journals of the society. For the existing consortia with the American Chemical Society (which is only open to institutions in Lower Saxony) and the Royal Society, the TIB was able to expand the range of services and also negotiate read-and-publish models.
For more information on the agreements, please contact tib-konsortientibeu.
