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Publishing Open Access

This guide provides resources for publishing Open Access (OA) and information about current Read and Publish Agreements between Snowden Library and journal publishers.

What are Read and Publish (RAP) Agreements?

Read and Publish Agreements, also known as 'Transformative Agreements,' are a type of contract between academic institutions and publishers. These agreements integrate the costs of accessing subscription-based journals (read component) with the costs (Article Processing Charges, or APCs) of publishing articles open access (publish component). The end goal of RAP agreements is a fully open access publishing environment.

How they work

  1. Subscription Access: The institution's faculty and students have access to the publisher's subscription content.
  2. Open Access Publishing: Authors affiliated with the institution can publish their research articles in the publisher’s journals without paying additional article processing charges (APCs).

Benefits for researchers

  • Cost Savings: Researchers can publish their work as open access without incurring personal costs, as the APCs are covered under the agreement.
  • Increased Visibility and Impact: Open access publications are freely available to anyone, anywhere, increasing the potential readership and citation rates.
  • Support for Open Access Movement: Contributes to the broader movement towards making research freely accessible to the global community.

Snowden Library's current RAP agreements

In 2025-2026, Snowden Library is participating in four RAP agreements:

  • American Chemical Society (ACS)
  • Association of Computing Machinery (ACM)
  • Elsevier
  • Microbiology Society

Details for each of these agreements, including information for authors, can be accessed via the navigation tabs of this guide. 

Snowden Library supports RAP agreements with publishers when the agreement makes financial sense and aligns with the College's teaching and research. These agreements may also help faculty who have research grants which may require the publication of research in an open-access journal.

The library does not currently fund article processing charges (APCs) for journals which are not part of a RAP agreement. Another no-cost Open Access option is self-archiving via our Institutional Repository when researchers' contracts with the publisher allow it.