Open access and the Big Deal sharing space in the Netherlands

Abstract

Open Access and the Big Deal are often thought to occupy opposite ends of the spectrum of openness in scholarly publishing. Universities in the Netherlands are changing that by negotiating OA publishing services into their Big Deals. This has been successfully arranged with three publishers already, and negotiations continue with Elsevier. While there are precedents for converting subscription payments to OA payments, such as the Sponsoring Coalition for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics, this new arrangement could have a big impact. The deal has the potential to quickly convert a large number of articles from toll access to OA and to do so without dramatically disturbing the scholarly publishing ecosystem. There are questions about its sustainability and scalability, but it’s a project worth watching.