Publishers withdraw 2500 journals from free access scheme in Bangladesh

"Five publishers have withdrawn free access to more than 2500 health and biomedical online journals from institutions in Bangladesh. One research leader has described the situation as “very discouraging.” From 4 January Elsevier Journals withdrew access in Bangladesh to 1610 of its publications, including the Lancet stable of journals, which had been available through the World Health Organization’s Health Inter-Network for Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) programme. HINARI was set up in 2002 to enable not for profit institutions in developing countries to gain access online to more than 7000 biomedical and health titles either free or at very low cost. Springer has withdrawn 588 of its journals from the programme in Bangladesh and Lippincott Williams and Wilkins 299 journals. The American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society for Animal Science have withdrawn access to, respectively, two and three of their journals....Kimberly Parker, programme manager at HINARI, said that the decision to withdraw free access was not unusual practice once publishers start to secure “active sales” in a country. “Access is still available through those institutions which purchase the journals,” she said...."