For 17 months, the Bibsam Consortium did not have an agreement with the world’s largest scholarly publisher, Elsevier. There is now a summary of the consequences for the consortium, the concerned organizations and their researchers.
As a leader in the global movement toward open access to publicly funded research, the University of California is taking a firm stand by deciding not to renew its subscriptions with Elsevier. Despite months of contract negotiations, Elsevier was unwilling to meet UC’s key goal: securing universal open access to UC research while containing the rapidly escalating costs associated with for-profit journals.
Last week, the University of California terminated its license with Elsevier. Leakage has reduced the value of the big deal -- and publisher pricing power.
It was a long and difficult road to get the major publishing houses to open up to open access, but in the end the Dutch universities got their much awaited ‘gold deal’ for open access. A recently…