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posted by mrpg on Friday March 01 2019, @09:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the good dept.

University of California Boycotts Publishing Giant Elsevier Over Journal Costs and Open Access:

The mammoth University of California (UC) system announced today that it will stop paying to subscribe to journals published by Elsevier, the world’s largest scientific publisher. Talks to renew a collective contract broke down, the university said, because Elsevier refused to strike a package deal that would provide a break on subscription fees and make all articles published by UC authors immediately free for readers worldwide.

The stand by UC, which followed eight months of negotiations, could have significant impacts on scientific communication and the direction of the so-called open access movement, in the United States and beyond. The 10-campus system accounts for nearly 10 percent of all U.S. publishing output and is among the first American institutions, and by far the largest, to boycott Elsevier over costs. Many administrators and librarians at American universities and elsewhere have complained about what they view as excessively high journal subscription fees charged by commercial publishers.

“It’s hard to overstate how big  [UC’s move] is for us here in the U.S.,” says Heather Joseph, executive director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, a Washington D.C.-based group that advocates for open access. “This gives institutions that are on the fence about taking this kind of action a blueprint.”

Indeed, UC’s move could ratchet up pressure on additional negotiations facing Elsevier and other commercial publishers; consortia of universities and labs in Germany and Sweden had already reached an impasse last year with Elsevier in their efforts to lower subscription fees.

[...] UC published about 50,000 articles last year, and a substantial share, about 10,000, appeared in Elsevier journals. For subscriptions and article fees, UC paid about $11 million, the Los Angeles Times reported recently. (UC says the information is confidential under a non-disclosure agreement.)

There are still many other institutions which continue to purchase subscriptions to these journals. How far away are we from reaching a tipping point?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @04:40AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @04:40AM (#809067)

    They'll need it a few months from now, when their scholars are begging for information that can only be found in Elsevier's journals and their college system doesn't have them.

    And "we want immediate free access for our scholars' articles! How dare they make any profit off them?" Yeah, that will go over well with an organization that *must* make a profit by selling articles. Exceptionally stupid case of trying to force socialism on profit entities. (And I'm not at all averse to socialism - in government).

    Maybe the UCal system can indeed launch some OpenAccess stuff..... nothing has prohibited them from doing that before. Can't wait to see the memos that come down requiring staff to "volunteer" to peer edit them.

    But as I said, I really do wish them well. They won't have a hope in hell after their scholars recognize how limited their system has made them by refusing to get them the tools they need.

  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday March 02 2019, @05:51AM (1 child)

    by darkfeline (1030) on Saturday March 02 2019, @05:51AM (#809074) Homepage

    > information that can only be found in Elsevier's journals

    What is this mysterious DRM that Elsevier is using, that prevents people from uploading papers to Scihub? Maybe they should license it out to video game and other media companies and make a hefty profit.

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    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @10:04AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @10:04AM (#809087)

      > What is this mysterious DRM that Elsevier is using, that prevents people from uploading papers to Scihub?

      The same that keeps people from using Pirate Bay. Honesty. That nagging little thing where you realize that using a service to avoid paying for something you owe for is in fact theft, whether you liked the price that was asked for or not. Unlike video game and other media, who are able to self-deceive all that more easily.

      No, not everybody has that sense by any means. Only people whose results I would trust and not feel bound to question their other research ethics. And you'd get people like me who would complain because I shouldn't have to resort to an unlawful and immoral site to get the information I need and I sincerely doubt UC does not have the money.

      It would be nice to get that information for free, but until the government fully socialized scientific publishing Elsevier is entitled to ask for whatever price it wishes and can survive at. Just as UC is free to penalize themselves by not purchasing it.