Enhancing the ESAC Registry: A community-driven step forward for transparency in open access publishing agreements
The OA2020 and ESAC communities mark a new phase in the evolution of the ESAC Registry—a shared, library-driven infrastructure documenting open access publishing agreements between libraries, consortia, and publishers.
Built by practitioners to strengthen transparency and shared insight across a rapidly evolving publishing landscape, the Registry documents how libraries worldwide have translated shared principles into operational practice—embedding open publishing directly into their agreements. Since 2019, more than 1,500 agreements from over 70 countries have been registered, demonstrating how coordinated, library-led action through transformative and open access publishing agreements has driven market evolution, expanding opportunities for authors to publish openly while the removing the financial barriers of author-facing fees.
As these efforts have reshaped expectations across the market—increasing transparency, deepening library leadership, and broadening open access publishing models—the Registry is evolving alongside the progress it documents. The latest enhancements expand its scope and capabilities to support the next phase of coordinated stewardship.
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