OpenEdition Freemium For eBooks

OpenEdition characterizes the Freemium library subscription investment as a hybrid model to sustainably support open access publishing (while providing some value added services). They indicate that the benefits will include finding an alternative to restricted access platforms, as well as keeping revenues directed toward actual costs. Two-thirds of income goes to the journals and publishers, while one-third is invested in OpenEdition’s platform development.

Acquisitions options vary: book titles can be selected individually or as a bundle; journal packages have tiered pricing which apply an interesting array of factors, including FTE of students in the disciplines of social sciences and humanities, the number of employees at an organization (e.g. research organization staff?), and Gross Domestic Product per Capita for the country of the subscribing institution.

Discerning how much of the platform content is open access can be somewhat confusing. In correspondence with CRL the OpenEdition distributor has indicated that for books, as of mid-2014, almost 80% of the nearly 1500 titles in the system were available in open access html format.  OpenEdition requires that publishers of books provide at least 50% of their content as open access or open access freemium; up until now they have voluntarily put more content than requested in open access.  Regarding journals, as of mid-2014 35% were available as full open access, 28% in open access freemium (html format only), and the remaining third had an embargo period.  This proportion was expected to remain steady, although the distributors reported that they were working to reduce embargo periods.

Local hosting is supported: OpenEdition reports that "When books are purchased, the files belong to the libraries [and can be hosted] at the end of the year; for freemium journals, the libraries can also receive the files of the subscription year, and be locally hosted and provided to their authorized users."