The “art of the possible” – librarians share their approach to transformative agreements

We recently explored this process with two library leaders whose institutions have recently signed agreements with several publishers. In the ACRL webinar “Partnering for Progress: Discussion on Transformative Agreements opens in new tab/window,” Amy Pawlowski, Executive Director of the OhioLINK consortium and Jennifer Matthews, Head of Collection Services at Rowan University in New Jersey were joined by Elsevier’s Emily Singley, Vice President of North American Library Relations to share their insights.

Building Agreements

OhioLINK, a statewide academic library consortium organized under the Ohio Department of Higher Education, currently has 5 open access agreements with publishers that serve its 87 multi-type member institutions. Amy explained that at first, “the idea of trying to facilitate interest and working through all of the moving parts of 5 different agreements seemed a little bit daunting,” because the needs of research-heavy universities differ greatly from our other types of member institutions.

At Rowan University, the conversation about transformative agreements began with an inquiry from the Provost. “The University Library already had an OA [open access] fund for 3-4 years, covering up to $3,000 for one article per author per year. Two years ago, the Provost mentioned to the Associate Provost of Libraries that he was interested in how MIT developed a mandated OA policy; also, the OSTP “Nelson” memo opens in new tab/window* had come out. And our contracts were coming up for renewal - it all coincided.” 

Rowan University has since negotiated 18 open access agreements that began this year. Jennifer says, “I approached our agreements with all the of the publishers in the same way, knowing what parameters I wanted: uncapped, for essentially anyone with a Rowan IP address. And as simple as possible for the author – I wanted them to be able to just say ‘I want to do this open access’ - then it comes to the library and everything else is done on our side.” 

Based on these parameters, Jennifer could then explore what was possible with each publisher – both in terms of price range and logistics. “Once we got to that point with the publisher, the other details all fell into place as to what we could or couldn’t do – so that’s where we got our different flavors” of agreements. 

Implementing Agreements 

Once agreements are in place, the librarians highlighted the importance of ensuring that researchers are aware of the new possibilities, and that faculty understand the value of the agreements for their publishing goals and their institutions at large. To that end, they discussed communication, cost framing and having a good management system in place.

Amy adds that, “each publisher has an OhioLINK page so faculty can find the info” on their current open access agreements. Naturally, they also have information on the OhioLINK website “since each deal is slightly different.” Like Rowan, “each institution manages quite a lot with their scholarly communications librarian.” To support them, OhioLINK staff members do ‘train the trainer’ sessions with librarians, and then those librarians work on their campuses to get the word out.” 

Framing the cost conversation with beneficiaries 

There is also an opportunity to shift the conversation around value across the institution.  Libraries are taking on costs that were previously borne by the departments, often without an increase in budget. When it's time to have conversations about renewals or publishing support, libraries can leverage the benefits won from the TAs to have new conversations about budget allocations. Jennifer describes the context this way: “In the first year the library pays for the agreement – departments don’t contribute to the cost of publishing” even though faculty members may have grant money that could cover APCs.   

Amy suggests that “one way to indicate that the library does not have the funding to take on the cost of the publishing portion of an agreement is by facilitating capped agreements. Ohio only cut these deals as cost-neutral - within the existing level of expenditure on subscriptions, but [the department] is getting this opportunity to publish at no cost. These two things can work together to help libraries message about the range of expertise and services provided for research, teaching, and learning across the campus.” 

In some instances, that message leads to overwhelming success. Jennifer explains that going over a cap can easily happen in the first year, requiring a “top-off” to cover additional articles. “A lot of the faculty may have done open agreements in previous years, but [now] the library is footing the bill, so it is much more appealing for them” to take advantage of the agreement.  To her this is a good sign - “we're starting to see more usage of open access publishing, which is great. That's what we want to see” – and it will inform her renewal conversations when the time comes: “I think the numbers will be more accurate, because we will have that 3-year average.”

Managing the agreement 

The librarians also discussed their experiences ramping up management systems for their agreements to oversee approvals and how the agreements are meeting their institutions’ goals. 

Amy says that the relative newness of transformative agreements as a whole is reflected in the interfaces that support them. “Publishers were trying to build infrastructure very quickly, so some of them work better than others.” To help improve these systems, libraries are engaging in ongoing conversations with publishers. “OhioLINK’s Associate Director of Licensing and Analytics meets with all of our publishers and talks through what our groups of approvers are experiencing and what they are hearing from faculty” about the process.   

At Rowan, Jennifer is currently managing that process for all 18 agreements at her institution – but luckily is able to automate much of the work by using two applications that consolidate approval and tracking for multiple publishers. She hopes this automation will allow her to eventually develop training for her staff. “The more I can automate it, the better, because then I just have to train them for the exceptions.”  

Outcomes 

The librarians are already seeing a clear benefit for their institutions and the public through these agreements: a significant increase in open access publishing. For Rowan University, Jennifer notes that in this first year of their agreements, “our OA publishing has increased by 84%.”  

Similarly, Amy reports that uptake among faculty increased significantly this year with more open access articles published in the first half of 2024 than in all of 2023.  “Since our first transformative agreement in 2022, 41 institutions have published 3,379 articles, for a savings of $12 million in avoided APC costs.” She adds, “we're starting to hear accolades from faculty members and departments that are really happy - it's less money for them when they're publishing through an OhioLINK deal.” 

You can hear more of Emily’s conversation with Amy and Jennifer about their experiences by viewing the full webinar opens in new tab/window on the ACRL website.

*The US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memo announcing that all federally funded research in the US would be required to publish their findings in a publicly accessible manner by the end of 2025.