UTA Libraries Renews Cambridge Journals Deal with Transformative Read & Publish Agreement

The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries is excited to announce its renewed partnership with Cambridge University Press—and the benefits of its transformative agreement, particularly to UTA faculty.

Access has now been set up for all libraries—including UTA—who joined the Cambridge Read & Publish deal. For 2021, this means UTA has access to the 400+ titles available on the Cambridge Journals Online platform.

“UTA Libraries is a proud to champion transformative agreements that include both read and publish rights,” said Peter Zhang, UTA Libraries Associate University Librarian for Discovery and Technology. “The current model—where 100% of the subscription pays to access materials—is unsustainable for both journals and authors, and we hope to be part of the future that sees agreements focusing instead on publishing rights and open reading access for all articles.”

The immediate benefit of this agreement to UTA faculty is that they will not have to pay Author Processing Charges (APCs) when they publish with an eligible Cambridge University Press journal to make their articles open access.

“UTA Libraries has basically prepaid APCs for UTA faculty with our subscription,” Zhang said. “Articles published in eligible journals will be made open access at no cost to the authors. This is particularly beneficial to faculty members who are not financially supported by grants (or otherwise) to pay for APCs.”

Zhang said there are additional benefits to faculty who make their work available through open access publications—namely, retaining their copyright and broadening their reach.

“These articles will be open to scholars all around the world,” Zhang said. “This will help increase readership and boost scholarly impact.”

UTA Libraries will also archive articles published through this agreement in its institutional repository, UTA ResearchCommons.

This agreement with Cambridge University Press has been endorsed by UTA as well as other UT System libraries. It is a big step by UT System schools towards a paradigm shift in scholarly communications.

Zhang says he and others at UTA Libraries are monitoring closely as more transformative agreements are being developed and negotiated, including the Association for Computing Machinery’s Transformative Model for Open Access Publication.