New ReadCube pilot introduces cost savers for research community

Labtiva, one of our portfolio companies, today launched a pilot program that will provide librarians and institutions a means of renting or buying articles outside of their institution’s catalog at a discounted price. The pilot program, called “ReadCube Access”, will enable researchers instant access to certain non-subscription content through their flagship product, ReadCube, a free application that helps researchers better manage their literature collections. The pilot is being run initially with Nature Publishing Group and the University of Utah. 

“We want to help scientists access any journal article they need, without having to pay $30 per article or jump through other hoops,” says Siniša Hrvatin, co-founder of Labtiva, in their press release. 

From their announcement today: 

Researchers at the university no longer need to pay to read articles in any journal on Nature.com, including more than 50 titles for which the institution does not hold full site licenses. Instead, the library picks up the tab as researchers download articles in a single click through the free ReadCube literature management application.

The library will pay only $5 to $10 for each download. Researchers can also choose to rent an article for 48 hours, which will cost the library only $3 to $6. Articles downloaded through ReadCube Access appear as normal PDFs, but cost much less because they may not be printed or shared.

For more information on the pilot, see their announcement, or let them know what you think online at @ReadCube. You can also download ReadCube for free on their website. We’d love to know what you think.