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A practical playbook for transformative agreements, APC waivers, and consortial terms.
Illinois State University's Milner Library saved its authors more than $1 million through open access agreements, the accumulated article processing charges researchers would otherwise have paid. Open access agreements are not just changing how authors publish; they are reshaping how libraries allocate subscription budgets. The savings depend on agreement models, publisher terms, APC eligibility rules, consortial negotiation strength, and where students in ALA accredited MLIS programs enter the work. For libraries, the practical shift in library operations is from managing journal subscriptions to negotiating publishing capacity, and the financial stakes now reach seven figures at a single institution.
For an open access librarian, read-and-publish and publish-and-read agreements both move library spending from subscriptions toward open access, but the practical difference is which part of the deal the payment is anchored to. A read-and-publish agreement bundles journal subscription reading access with article processing charge (APC) coverage or publication credits for affiliated authors.1 A publish-and-read agreement centers the payment on publishing and includes reading access at no extra charge.2
Transformative agreements are the umbrella label for read-and-publish, publish-and-read, and similar transitional contracts designed to increase open access output as part of the digital transformation in libraries.1 Pure publish agreements are a narrower route: a library pays a membership or publishing fee that covers or discounts publication in fully open access journals, not hybrid journals.3 In practice, institutions sometimes use transformative, read-and-publish, and transitional as near-synonyms, but the payment anchor is the useful distinction.
The hybrid versus fully OA distinction matters for eligibility and budget planning. A hybrid journal keeps some articles behind a paywall while others become open access for a fee. A fully OA journal requires every article to be open access.1 Read-and-publish and publish-and-read deals often target hybrid journals, though some also include fully OA titles depending on the publisher and contract.1 Pure publish agreements are typically the path for fully OA journals.3
Imagine a corresponding author at an institution with a read-and-publish agreement covering Wiley hybrid journals. When they submit an accepted article to a hybrid Wiley title, the APC may be covered or drawn from a shared credit pool, while the library continues to fund reading access. If that same author submits to a fully OA journal outside the deal, the APC usually falls to the author or grant unless the library has a separate pure publish agreement or waiver.3 Coverage also depends on journal scope, article type, and contract period.1 Eligibility generally depends on corresponding author affiliation with a participating institution.
The table below compares current 2025-2026 agreement terms across Taylor & Francis, Wiley, Sage, Springer Nature, and Elsevier. Watch for three cost-structure differences first: whether APCs are fully waived, capped at a national or institutional level, or offered as percentage discounts; whether book publishing is included; and whether hybrid or fully gold journals are covered. No single publisher offers the strongest terms on every dimension, so libraries typically weigh local author volume and consortial leverage before committing.
| Publisher | Model Type | Contract Length | APC Pricing Structure | Book Coverage | Notable Terms |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taylor & Francis | Read & Publish transformative agreement | Not stated in available summary | 100% of open access fees covered for eligible Taylor & Francis journals | Journal articles only; books are not mentioned | Includes fully open access and hybrid Open Select titles; excludes Dove Press, F1000, and Expert Medicine; covers original research articles only; no stated annual cap |
| Wiley | National transformative Open Access agreement | Four-year agreement, January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2029 | Cost-free OA publishing up to 1,520 articles per year nationally; 15% discount on APCs after cap is reached | Not specified | National annual cap on full APC coverage; applies to participating Wiley journals and articles accepted during agreement period |
| Sage | Jisc-negotiated transformative agreement | Current agreement ends December 31, 2025 | Not available in cited registry summary | Not available in cited registry summary | Synchronized end date with Springer, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and Elsevier; renegotiation under Jisc Next Generation OA strategy |
| Springer Nature | Transformative agreement covering Springer and Academic Journals imprints | Three-year agreement, January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2028 | Reading access to more than 1,770 journals plus APC waivers for OA publishing in more than 1,730 eligible hybrid journals | Books are not included | Covers journal articles only, specifically Original Papers, Review Papers, Brief Communications, and Continuing Education |
| Elsevier | Transformative agreement, national | Five-year agreement, 2023 through 2027 | Hybrid journal APCs limited nationally and exhausted in 2023 and 2024; unlimited hybrid APCs from 2025 onward; full gold OA journals not covered | Not specified | Unlimited hybrid journal APCs for remaining term from 2025; full gold OA journals excluded |
APC waiver rules vary by publisher and institution across academic librarianship, but a few patterns determine whether an author pays nothing, receives a discount, or faces a full article processing charge.
Most agreements cover APCs only for the responsible corresponding author who is affiliated with a participating institution at the time of acceptance. Multi-institution papers follow the corresponding author's affiliation: co-authors from non-participating schools do not make an article eligible. Institutional email addresses are commonly required in agreements negotiated through library associations, as in Wiley and Taylor & Francis arrangements. Springer Nature's BTAA agreement similarly ties eligibility to the corresponding author from a member campus.
Not all journal types are treated equally. Many agreements cover hybrid journals only, such as Sage Jisc and Taylor & Francis UCD-IReL, while fully open access titles are either excluded or billed at a separate discounted rate. Other deals include both, including Wiley CAUL, Taylor & Francis Melbourne and UNSW, and Springer Nature MAHE. Wiley's global APC waiver applies only to fully open access journals, not hybrid titles. Elsevier CAUL explicitly excludes fully OA journals.
Institutions may have annual APC caps or quotas. Taylor & Francis IReL allows 320 articles in 2026; the Netherlands agreement caps publications at 1,451 per year. Wiley University of Valencia permits 20 APCs in 2025 and 21 from 2026 to 2028. When a cap is reached, authors may need to cover APCs themselves, seek alternative funding, or ask the library to request an exception. Some caps apply separately to hybrid and fully OA totals; Elsevier SCELC, for example, leaves core hybrid coverage uncapped but limits fully OA articles to 126 in 2026. Other agreements are uncapped altogether, such as Wiley Trent, Springer Nature MAHE, Sage CAUL hybrid, and Elsevier CAUL hybrid.
Milner Library's open access agreements save Illinois State authors over $1 million.
Individual libraries rarely have enough author volume to secure transformative terms on their own; consortial negotiation is what turns scattered publishing output into a credible, multi-institution negotiating position. When a group like the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA), Lyrasis, and California Digital Library (CDL) pools demand, publishers face the loss of dozens or hundreds of contracts at once, which changes the conversation from fee schedules to structural open access commitments.1
A single university might publish a few hundred articles per year in a publisher's journals, but a consortium represents tens of thousands of authors. That aggregated volume gives consortia the ability to ask for contract features that individual libraries cannot realistically demand: unlimited APC waivers, reading access for every member, and predictable multi-year pricing. The California-wide Wiley agreement, negotiated by CDL and SCELC, brought 48 institutions into a single deal starting January 2024, with 24 designated as equity institutions to reduce cost barriers. That kind of scale would be impossible for one campus.1
The "Better Together" group, formed in 2024 by BTAA, Lyrasis, and CDL, coordinates strategy across North America.1 Internationally, the Swiss Consortium maintains active open access agreements with more than a dozen major publishers, and the DEAL consortium in Germany secured a 2024 Elsevier agreement covering reading access plus OA publishing for over 60 institutions that had cancelled Elsevier in 2016.4 Those outcomes show that collective bargaining produces terms that individual libraries simply cannot win alone.
Most read-and-publish agreements are journal deals. They typically do not cover books.1 Libraries and authors usually need separate book-focused programs for open access monographs. In short, assume journal-only unless the agreement explicitly names books.
The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) indexes peer-reviewed open access books and links to full text.2 OAPEN hosts many of those books.4 As of March 2026, DOAB listed more than 108,000 peer-reviewed books.3 These are discovery and hosting infrastructures, not read-and-publish agreements.
Publisher programs can feed both. Taylor & Francis, for example, makes its open access books available on its eBooks platform and sends them to OAPEN and DOAB.5
The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) open access policy has covered in-scope monographs, book chapters, and edited collections since January 2024.3 Starting in February 2025, UKRI-funded open access books are included in the OAPEN Library.3 The TOME initiative is another book open access funding model, but it is separate from read-and-publish deals.1
When reviewing an agreement, explicitly ask: - Does this agreement cover journal articles only, or also monographs and edited collections? - Are book processing charges (BPCs) included, discounted, or waived? - Is there a separate open access book program or consortial book deal you can join?
If the agreement is silent on books, do not assume coverage. Ask for a written list of excluded formats or a separate monograph addendum.
Students in ALA-accredited MLIS programs can begin building open access negotiation and publishing skills before graduation through structured internships, fellowships, and campus advocacy work.
Several 2026 opportunities offer direct entry points. ASU Library's Open Scholarship Intern, open to ALA-accredited MLS students and recent graduates, covers scholarly publishing, copyright, open access, data curation, and Indigenous data sovereignty. The unpaid role can be completed on the Tempe campus or remotely and offers course credit; applications close July 31, 2026.1 Stony Brook University Libraries' Scholarly Communication Intern works 10 to 20 hours per week supporting the Open Access Symposium, outreach, collection-building, and blog tracking.2
Classroom projects translate directly. A UNC School of Information and Library Science student created an INLS 690 LibGuide on diversity, equity, and inclusion in open access, covering copyright and visual literacy.7 Indiana University Bloomington's proposed IMLS-funded model recruits first-year MLS students each March for summer scholarly communication internships at 10 hours per week, paired with a masters-level course.8 These experiences build the skills you learn in mls program needed for licensing terms, APC waiver eligibility, and consortial publishing workflows, the same capabilities used in read-and-publish negotiations.
Students who complete these roles graduate prepared for scholarly communication librarian and library publishing positions, where open access agreement management is now a core responsibility.
