Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A library renews a pure read deal for a small society publisher with no APC offering.
- Is an instance
A consortium describes a deal as 'pure read' to distinguish it from its transformative agreements.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
Misrepresenting a pure read deal as transformative in funder-compliance reporting.
- Not an instance
Buying a pure read deal at full price when a publish-component negotiation was available.
Editorial commentary
Pure read agreements (sometimes called legacy subscription deals) remain widespread, particularly with publishers that do not offer transformative arrangements, with smaller society publishers, or with publishers whose portfolios are predominantly closed-access. From a knowledge-equity perspective, pure read deals concentrate access among well-resourced institutions and exclude under-resourced ones; they also do not contribute to OA transition. They are increasingly seen as transitional themselves: many libraries treat pure read agreements as candidates for cancellation or renegotiation.
References
- ESAC glossary. SPARC contract-library resources.
Also known as
Read-only agreement · Pure subscription
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Pure read agreement"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/pure-read-agreement" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/pure-read-agreement",
"name": "Pure read agreement",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/pure-read-agreement",
"description": "A traditional subscription contract giving an institution access to read a publisher's content, with no open-access publishing component, in contrast to a transformative or pure publish agreement.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/knowledge-equity#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/pure-read-agreement",
"sameAs": [
"Read-only agreement",
"Pure subscription"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"dateModified": "2026-05-21T02:22:56",
"inLanguage": "en"
}
