SHADE-THROWING MASTERCLASS OMG

(2020). The Impact of Big Deal Breaks on Library Consortia: An Exploratory Case Study. The Serials Librarian: Vol. 79, No. 1-2, pp. 153-162.

When the original BOAI declaration on open access was published, one of its stated aims was to ‘save money and expand the scope of dissemination at the same time’ through open access publishing. The web offered distribution costs that the authors claimed were ‘far lower’ than print publishing and so OA was seen at least … Continue reading "How the academic publishing oligopoly skews debates on the cost of publishing"

The expiration of the University of California’s contract with a major publisher of scientific and medical research may have had less impact than expected, UC librarians and researchers said.

Self-governance of science was supposed to mean freedom of inquiry, but it also ended up serving the business model of scientific publishers while undermining the goals of science policy.

ResearchGate received a U.S. Patent today (Feb. 11, 2020) for Enhanced Online User-Interaction Tracking And Document Rendition From the Abstract: Disclosed are systems and methods for enhanced tracking of user interactions with online documents, such as, in accordance with various embodiments, int...

Return to table reflects ongoing string of advances for open science movement

Agreement allows yearlong delay before papers become free to read

Unpaywall has a tool for estimating cost savings on Big Deals.

The UC libraries let their Elsevier journal subscriptions lapse and now the publisher has cut their online access. It’s a painful milestone in the fight UC hopes may transform how journals get paid.

In this talk we highlight some results after the Swedish Bibsam consortium decided to cancel the agreement with scientific publisher Elsevier after 20 years as they couldn’t present a model that met the demands of the consortium. The requirements were immediate open access to all articles published in Elsevier journals by researchers affiliated to participating organisations as well as reading access to all articles in Elsevier’s journals. Bibsam also demanded a sustainable price model that enables a transition to open access publishing. We investigate the effects of this cancellation on Sweden’s largest technical university, the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Method The study has two themes. First, we analyse the economics in earlier Bibsam-Elsevier agreements and what effects they have had for the budget and purchasing decisions made by the KTH Library. Second, we evaluate the response and the adapted behaviour of KTH researchers in the attempt to see if the cancellation has had severe negative effects for them. Results Our data collection gives an overview over the effects of the cancelled agreement at KTH. In particular, we observe how some of the money saved on the cancellation is used for individual article purchases and alternative services, thus lowering the effect of the cut-off. During our talk, we will also review some marketing strategies employed at KTH and Swedish libraries for making this cancellation process as smooth as possible. Limitations The short time period that has elapsed after the cancellation makes it difficult to see any long-time trends. The limited time frame also affects the validity of the researchers’ responses. Moreover, it is difficult to tell how the results from a case study from one university can be generalised to a global setting.

A North American framework for creating transformative change in the scholarly publishing industry based on initial insights from the University of California’s 2018-19 negotiations with Elsevier Prepared by the UC Publisher Strategy and Negotiation Task ForceMay 2019 A printer-friendly version of this toolkit is available as a PDF. The University of California’s (UC) 2018-19 journal contract negotiation with Elsevier has been widely followed. In response to ongoing demand for information, this negotiation toolkit was created to provide support and insight for institutions, particularly university librarians/directors and faculty in North America, interested in restructuring their publisher contracts for journal content. UC […]

How librarians, pirates, and funders are liberating the world’s academic research from paywalls.

Students who can't afford their course materials—along with a rogue professor—are taking on the system.

UC and Elsevier A blueprint for publisher negotiations Jeff MacKie-Mason University Librarian, University of California, Berkeley, & Professor, UC Berkeley School of Information and Department of Economics Günter Waibel Associate Vice Provost & Executive Director, California Digital Library Mathe...