Go for Double: on the "Read & Let Read" Model

Abstract

I'm glad we're keeping the meme alive here. Read & Let ReadSo what are TAs? But we are having you on this podcast, because you recently have written a few articles now about sort of transforming transformative agreements. So these like TAs have been discussed and circulated for, I think, long enough now to have a general sense of what they are and what they mean. But also, either not yet long enough, or maybe too long to have like a loose definition and application. So maybe we could start off with like, from your perspective, what are transformative agreements, and how are they being used in a library context? And then how sort of does this current ecosystem of TAs and APCs motivate the Read & Let Read model that you've proposed? AJ Boston 02:13Thank you for letting me talk about Read & Let Read, which is an idea that, as you note, I won't shut up about.It is kind of born out of an ecosystem where we have transformative agreements -also known as read and publish deals, or publish and read deals. They're kind of in a funny space of awareness. A lot of people know what they are, some people have no idea what they are. And some people are just like, kind of confused by the whole idea. A lot of librarians get a lot of vendor emails, asking to see if they're interested in signing up. I saw a vendor email the other day (I won't say who it was sent to) but it was a vendor asking for a quote about how they how their school or the their library enjoys their TA. But they don't have a TA with that publisher.Transformative agreements are kind of like subscription deals for a library or institution to have some pre agreed some set number of article processing charges to be paid for in the upcoming year. Schools and research institutions especially will pay processing charges to make their faculty works open access. And this is kind of like a bundle deal that gets them that cuts them a little bit of a discount.At the time of the tweet, AJ had changed his name to "CEO of Elsevier" in response to company acquisition drama.