Libraries continue financial support for MIT authors’ open access publishing — though PLoS closes discount program

The MIT Libraries have been supporting MIT authors who wish to make their work as openly available as possible, by funding programs and memberships that reduce publication fees for those who choose open access publishing options.

Through the MIT Libraries, MIT authors receive discounts in the following open access publications:

    MIT Libraries Open Access Publication Fund — Provides MIT faculty with up to $1000 towards publication fees in peer-reviewed, open access journals, including memberships in the new PeerJ. more info

    arXiv –Through funding from the MIT Libraries and the Department of Physics, MIT is an institutional supporting member of this repository, which offers open access to e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance and Statistics. more info

    BioMed Central –MIT Libraries’ membership provides MIT authors with a 15% discount on article processing fees for BMC journals and all SpringerOpen journals as well. more info

    Nucleic Acids Research — MIT Libraries’ membership provides MIT authors with a 50% discount on open access processing fees. more info

    PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) — MIT Libraries’ site license provides MIT authors with a 25% discount on the optional open access processing fees. more info

    Royal Society — MIT Libraries’ membership provides MIT authors with a 25% discount on article processing charges for any Royal Society journal, including their open access journal and their open access option for traditional journals called EXiS Open Choice. more info

    Royal Society of Chemistry — MIT Libraries’ site license provides MIT authors with a 15% discount on the optional open access processing fees. more info / and see: Special information on vouchers covering entire open access publishing fees for limited number of articles in 2013

The Libraries had also been subscribing to a membership in PLoS (Public Library of Science), which has been providing MIT authors with a 10% discount on author fees.   PLoS has decided to retire this membership program, which was intended to be a transitional part of their business model, at the end of 2013.

More information:

Libraries’ web page on Open Access publication support

Ellen Finnie Duranceau, Program Manager, Scholarly Publishing, Copyright, and Licensing, MIT Libraries