Elsevier strikes its first national deal with large open-access element

"After a year of talks, Dutch publishing giant Elsevier has struck a deal with a group of Norwegian universities that will allow academics to publish the vast majority of their work under open-access terms.

The two-year pilot scheme marks the largest such agreement — often called a ‘read and publish’ deal — that Elsevier has made with a national consortium of research libraries....

Under the agreement, scientists in the 46 Norwegian universities and research institutes represented by the consortium will have access to 2,800 Elsevier journals. It will also allow 1,850 articles authored by those academics to be immediately free to read on publication in Elsevier titles. On the basis of historical data, this total should cover about 90% of Norwegian academics’ yearly publications in the company’s journals.

The universities’ previous subscription contract expired on 31 December, and negotiators had begun talks with Elsevier about renewing their licensing agreement in spring last year. The publisher allowed researchers in Norway to continue accessing its latest articles even though the contract had lapsed...."