01/13/2025
By Sara Marks

The University Library is working with publishers to make open access publishing easier for our faculty and researchers. In addition to Wiley and Institute of Physics (IOP), we recently added agreements with the American Chemical Society, the Company of Biologists, American Society for Microbiology, and Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). Starting in 2025 those publishing in journals from these publishers have the option to have their articles published open access. The library's contract with the publisher waives the open access article processing charges (APCs). For more details about each publisher partnership, visit the Library Support for Publishing page in our Faculty Guide.

Open access articles are freely accessible online to anyone who wishes to read them. They are often identified by an orange unlocked padlock icon. Articles published open access go through the same rigorous peer review process as other scholarly articles. The difference is how accessible these articles are to the public. They don’t get stored behind paywalls or require high fees to access. In 2022 the U.S. federal government expanded open access requirements. Almost all articles written about research funded with public funds will soon need to be published as open access. The University Library is taking the lead at UML to make this easier for our community.

If you have questions about this agreement or would like us to talk to a publisher you regularly work with, please contact Alice Pearman, Assistant Director for Library Collections (Alice_Pearman@uml.edu).