The Council of Australian University Librarians has done its fifth deal on opening access for research publication

The new agreement is with Berlin-based monograph and journal publisher De Gruyter. It will allow researchers from participating ANZ universities to publish an uncapped number of accepted articles in hybrid journals their institution subscribes to with costs covered by the sub.

The publisher’s standard article processing charge is €2000 ($A3119).

This is the fifth agreement CAUL has announced with publishers since October, preceded by OUP, CUP. Springer and Wiley and while they are far from OA, as in free to read, free to publish, they do contain cost-growth in an industry where the small size of the local market minimises bargaining power.

As CAUL described the CUP agreement, it, “enables a steady transition towards a complete open transformation which fairly apportions fees based on the research output of the participating institution and recognises the complexity of the varied funding models and drivers for publication for authors in different areas,” (CMM October 15).

CAUL is said to have three more agreements, with small publishers in the works.

CAUL’s work could have set a new base for research publishing in Australia but for Chief Scientist Cathy Foley raising the stakes.

Last week Dr Foley suggested a model that looks like CAUL’s but with national-agreements with publishers, “negotiated by a central organisation,” (CMM November 16).