UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State University Libraries recently entered into an agreement with SAGE Publications that will help to expand access to scholarly content, promote open access (OA) publishing, and increase visibility of Penn State research. This is SAGE’s first full read-and-publish agreement with a U.S. institution.
“We are excited about this new agreement with SAGE, one of our important publishing partners,” said Mihoko Hosoi, associate dean for collections, research and scholarly communications, University Libraries. “With this agreement, Penn State corresponding authors’ work can be published in both hybrid and pure Gold OA journals and can be immediately open and visible without incurring additional cost for authors, libraries or readers. We are thrilled that we were able to increase access to Penn State research while containing costs for the University.”
The agreement covers OA publishing charges for Penn State corresponding authors publishing in the vast majority of SAGE journals (less than 2% of SAGE journals are not covered by the deal). Those articles will be immediately open access on SAGE’s platform. SAGE will offer a choice of open access licenses to authors publishing in SAGE journals. Authors retain copyright in their articles; those who do not select an open access license at time of publication can retroactively convert to OA for free within 12 months of publication, after which a $250 fee applies.
The agreement runs for two years from Jan. 1, 2022, to Dec. 31, 2023. Penn State corresponding authors who have already published with SAGE in 2022 will receive offers from SAGE within the next month to convert their articles to OA at no cost.
“As long-term advocates of sustainable open research, SAGE aims to partner with university librarians to craft agreements that meet both access and authorship needs for their faculty and, ultimately, enable them to make real impact through their research,” said David Ross, SAGE’s vice president of open research. “This agreement will allow Penn State authors to choose the OA route that best meets their needs and provide them with a mechanism to easily navigate through the process.”
The agreement also covers subscriptions to SAGE journals. Unlimited open access publishing is included with no additional cost.
This agreement joins a growing list of University Libraries support for open access, including similar agreements covering open access publishing with Cambridge University Press and the Public Library of Science, support for open access monograph publishing by university presses, implementation of the University’s open access policy, and the Libraries Open Publishing Program.
For more information about open access initiatives supported by the University Libraries, users and researchers should send inquiries to openaccess@psu.edu.