The University of California Libraries are pleased to announce their support of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s recently released Framework for Publisher Contracts, intended to guide MIT’s negotiations with academic publishers.  

In seeking to advance the transformation of the scholarly publishing industry to an open access system, UC stands shoulder to shoulder with MIT and other leading research institutions in North America and around the world. The UC Libraries commend MIT’s role as an open access leader, and share MIT’s belief that “the benefits to society are greatest when … scholarship is freely and immediately available to the entire world to access, read, and use.”

The values outlined in MIT’s document align with many of the principles in the 2018 Declaration of Rights and Principles to Transform Scholarly Communication issued by UC’s Academic Senate library committee, known as the University Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication (UCOLASC), which provides a faculty-led framework for UC’s negotiations with academic publishers. 

UC has been a national leader in the push for direct and immediate open access to the world’s knowledge (often referred to as gold open access). MIT’s effort to formally establish a standard whereby all articles are deposited in open access repositories (known as green open access) is a significant complementary initiative that is also of strategic importance in advancing our shared open access goals. 

In its 2018 Pathways to OA toolkit, the UC Libraries embraced green open access as one of several methods to support the broader effort to transform the publishing landscape into one that is economically sustainable and ensures the widest possible access to the scholarly record. 

As the Pathways document affirms, “collective action on implementing the strategies is likely to bear greater fruit.” The UC Libraries commend and support MIT and others across the globe who stand with us in the push for transformation in journal publishing agreements, so that people everywhere can have free and unfettered access to the world’s research.

Share
 

Tags: ,