From: Ann Shumelda Okerson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2018 08:31:16 -0500

Bernhard Mittermaier, [member of DEAL negotiating team] "From the DEAL
engine room — an interview with Bernhard Mittermaier". LIBREAS.
Library Ideas, 32 (2017). http://libreas.eu/ausgabe32/mittermaier_en/

"A few years ago it seemed far out of reach (at least for OA advocates
and maybe even for the heads of acquisition) and for more than two
years now something has been on everybody’s lips: Whether management
in higher education, scholars, librarians, or science journalists –
DEAL is repeatedly associated with a project that aims at closing a
national deal for scholarly publications, first and foremost with the
three top dog publishers Elsevier, Springer Nature and Wiley, and –
later on – maybe even further academic publishers.

"What’s special about that? The deal shall not only include access to
scholarly journals, with one price tag and transparent pricing. It
shall also include an open access component for all German articles.
In other words, authors affiliated with institutions that are part of
the DEAL consortium shall be able to publish their articles open
access. Publish and Read (PAR), one deal at one transparent price. It
would mean a huge step for the open access transformation of the
journal market.

"The (tough) negotiations with Elsevier have in particular been in the
national and international spot. Since the beginning of 2017 as many
as 76 German research or higher education institutions did not have a
license agreement with the publisher. Scholars from these institutions
cannot access Elsevier journals directly.1 Some feared scholars would
riot, this fear turned out to be unsubstantiated, though.2 As of end
of October 2017, 109 institutions have announced not to renew
individual agreements with Elsevier when the year closes. Thus, from
January 2018 on 185 institutions3 will either be part of a national
DEAL consortium, or Elsevier journals cannot not be accessed."

[SNIP]

http://libreas.eu/ausgabe32/mittermaier_en/?t=1&cn=
ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjc18y&refsrc=email&iid=0709c7b2471e46979e5b60a9a07025
3f&uid=774480907&nid=244+276893704