Everyone, you may be interested in familiarizing yourself with the UC/Elsevier situation. It’s being discussed widely, and was referenced in the Library Council meeting this morning.
The University of California recently announced that it will not renew its subscriptions with Elsevier. One of the central reasons (I’m paraphrasing) was that Elsevier wanted to charge UC an exorbitant price for the University’s top priority: an agreement enabling all UC research in Elsevier journals to be openly accessible, while containing escalating subscription costs.
Here are some key reads on the situation:
- The formal announcement made by the University of California Office of the President, “UC terminates subscriptions with world’s largest scientific publisher in push for open access to publicly funded research“: [link]
- An interview with University Librarian Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, co-chair of the UC negotiating team, “Why UC split with publishing giant Elsevier“: [link]
- The UC Office of Scholarly Communication‘s page on the Elsevier negotiations, which includes “What UC Faculty are Saying”: [link]