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Cambridge University Press and the Max Planck Society have collaborated to develop a new book sales agreement that combines evidence-based acquisition with open access funding.
Both organisations are committed to driving more open access publishing, and to making it easier for authors to publish in this way. They say that combining open access with evidence-based acquisition will enable the institution to decide how it wishes to spend its budget and will ease the funding and administrative burden on authors who are publishing open access.
In addition, the flexibility from this new agreement to tailor the programme each year depending on users’ needs “will ensure that Max Planck can continually align the publishing model with the evolving needs of its researchers”.
Jack Macdonald, Library Sales Director at Cambridge University Press, emphasised the bespoke nature of the new sales and publishing model: “This is the first agreement of this kind for the Press, and it reflects our commitment to making open access publishing more affordable and accessible, while continuing to offer high-quality books and Elements to readers worldwide.”
“Cambridge and the Max Planck Society recognise the importance of collaborating to expand open access book publishing, providing better support for authors, while maintaining access to ebooks.”
Under this new model, new Cambridge books by authors at Max Planck Institutes will be eligible for open access publishing. Backlist titles will also be eligible for open access conversion on a case-by-case basis, and Max Planck researchers will be granted unlimited access to books on Cambridge Core.
Ádám Dér, Head of Scientific Information Provision at the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL), highlighted how this new agreement will benefit their academics: “We are excited to have worked closely with the Cambridge team through an exceptionally open and transparent negotiation process, and to have reached an agreement that will enable our authors to not only access the books and Elements from Cambridge of relevance to them but also publish their books open access with the Press.
“This agreement reflects our longstanding and steadfast commitment to open access and ensures worldwide reach and the greatest possible impact for our researchers.”