University of California's showdown with the biggest academic publisher aims to change scholarly publishing for good

"This month, academic publisher Elsevier shuttered the University of California’s online access to current journal articles. It’s the latest move in the high stakes standoff between Elsevier, the world’s largest publisher of scholarly research, and the University of California, whose scholars produce about 10% of the nation’s research publications.

Last February, Elsevier chose to continue providing access to journals via its ScienceDirect online platform after UC’s subscription expired and negotiations broke down. With its instant access now cut off, the UC research community will learn firsthand what it’s like to rely on the open web and other means of accessing critical research.

The UC-Elsevier showdown made headlines because it’s symptomatic of the way the internet has failed to deliver on the promise to make knowledge easily accessible and shareable by anyone, anywhere in the world. It’s the latest in a succession of cracks in what is widely considered to be a failing system for sharing academic research. As the head of the research library at UC Davis, I see this development as a harbinger of a tectonic shift in how universities and their faculty share research, build reputations and preserve knowledge in the digital age...."