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A new pilot program between Vanderbilt University’s Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries and Cambridge University Press will expand Vanderbilt’s Evidence-Based Acquisitions (EBA) ebook agreement with Cambridge to include book publishing opportunities for Vanderbilt authors.
Cambridge’s EBA provides institutional access to its ebook collection and allows libraries to decide which titles to own in perpetuity. The new agreement will therefore retain Vanderbilt’s access to more than 50,000 ebooks spanning thousands of academic monographs and specialized series across the humanities, sciences and social sciences.
However, the new expansion, one of the first to be signed in North America, also will include open access publishing options for Vanderbilt authors. Under the agreement, monographs and Cambridge Elements—brief, peer-reviewed research that bridges the gap between traditional journal articles and full-length books—that have a Vanderbilt corresponding author can be published open access without the author paying a book processing charge.
“By removing these publishing fees, our partnership with Cambridge University Press provides Vanderbilt researchers and authors with a new pathway to make their scholarship freely available to readers around the world,” said Jon Shaw, dean of libraries and letters and Connie Vinita Dowell University Librarian at Vanderbilt. “This collaboration reflects the Vanderbilt Libraries’ ongoing commitment to expanding access to scholarly resources while supporting more open and sustainable models of publishing.”
“Our new agreement with Vanderbilt reflects our continued commitment to working with our librarian partners on innovative and financially sustainable models to make open access book publishing more affordable and accessible to authors and researchers,” said Jack Macdonald, library sales director at Cambridge University Press. “Both Cambridge and Vanderbilt recognize the importance of increasing access to knowledge and enabling more people to find, use and benefit from it.”
The first Vanderbilt author to benefit from the new agreement is Lynn Ramey, professor of French and of cinema and media arts, whose book, The Immersive Global Middle Ages, will be published by Cambridge in October 2026.
“My co-author and I were so pleased to find that the Vanderbilt Libraries had entered this agreement with Cambridge University Press just in time for our forthcoming book,” Ramey said. “Open access makes our book available to a much wider audience and increases the impact that our work will have. However, open access is not inexpensive, and we would not have been able to pay for it on our own. This is one of the most significant boosts to my research profile that Vanderbilt has provided in my 25-plus years at the university, and I’m very grateful.”
The pilot program complements the Vanderbilt Libraries’ existing open access journal publishing agreement with Cambridge University Press. Established in 2021, the transformative agreement allows Vanderbilt corresponding authors to publish open access in hundreds of eligible Cambridge journals without paying article processing charges while also providing the Vanderbilt community access to Cambridge’s current journal content. Together, the journal and book agreements extend Vanderbilt’s partnership with Cambridge across multiple forms of scholarly publishing and reduce financial barriers to making Vanderbilt research openly available.
The collaboration also bolsters Cambridge University Press’ leadership in open access publishing. In 2026, three-quarters of all research articles that Cambridge has published are open access, and over 50 percent of its journals are open access. In addition, more than 2,000 open access publishing agreements have been established with global university libraries and consortia to cover publishing costs for affiliated authors without extra fees.
ABOUT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge University Press is the academic and Bibles publisher of Cambridge University Press & Assessment. It publishes books and journals, serving customers in higher education through research, education products and services. It is part of the University of Cambridge, delivering trusted research and learning materials that spread knowledge, spark curiosity and aid understanding of the world we live in. Learn more at cambridge.org/universitypress.
ABOUT VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
Founded in 1873, Vanderbilt University is internationally recognized for its transformative education and research. The university’s 11 schools reside on a parklike campus in the heart of Nashville, Tennessee, providing a collaborative culture that empowers the leaders of tomorrow. In addition to offering an immersive residential undergraduate experience, Vanderbilt is deeply committed to expanding the global impact of its innovation and research as it increases opportunities for faculty, students and staff to pursue bold new ideas and discoveries. Learn more at vanderbilt.edu.