From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2018 16:35:07 +0100

Over three months ago (in March) the Association of Universities in
the Netherlands (VSNU) published a very brief news item announcing
that it had reached agreement with Springer Nature on a new OA Big
Deal.

Curious as to the details of the agreement, I invited VSNU to answer
some questions, both about the Springer Nature deal and VSNU’s failure
to reach agreement with the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC),
concerning which another short news item had been published at the
same time. VSNU’s Spokesperson and Advisor Public Affairs Bart Pierik
agree to answer my questions.

When I sent my list of questions to him, however, Pierik appeared to
change his mind. “Considering the fact that we are finalising some
more deals with publishers at this moment (we just published good news
about Oxford University Press) my proposal is that we would be glad to
make one Q&A in April about all of these deals,” he emailed me.

I was disappointed but decided instead to write something more
wide-ranging about the growing number of OA Big Deals we can see being
agreed between legacy publishers and the research community and to
mention VSNU in that larger piece.

I concluded that article by again inviting VSNU to answer my
questions, adding, “By doing so they can help shine a light on this
somewhat crepuscular corner of scholarly communication and demonstrate
that affordability and transparency are just as important as
accessibility.”

April came and went, and I assumed my questions had fallen into a
black hole somewhere never to be seen again.

To my surprise, however, yesterday I received an email from Wilma Van
Wezenbeek, Programme Manager Open Access at VSNU.

Not only did Van Wezenbeek attach answers to my questions but she
informed me that VSNU has now published the contracts it has signed
with both Springer Nature and Taylor & Francis (although Springer
Nature has not permitted VSNU to disclose their general terms and
conditions).

The email and the Q&A can both be read here:

https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/07/oa-big-deals-vsnu-embraces-greater.html

--
Richard Poynder