CU Boulder faculty and University Libraries call for equitable access to information

"CU Boulder faculty are supporting the University Libraries in current negotiations with major academic publishers over licensing agreements that will determine who gets access to academic journals under what terms and conditions and at what cost to the campus. 

The Boulder Faculty Assembly, which is the representative body of the faculty for the Boulder campus, passed a resolution on October 5, 2023, supporting the libraries’ mission to provide equitable access to information and preserve author’s rights. Approved without dissent, the resolution recognizes the impact of subscription costs on the campus budget and champions open access to information and protecting authors rights to retain copyright of their work. 

The faculty support comes as the University Libraries engage in negotiations over fees and terms for renewal of licenses with major academic publishers including Elsevier, Wiley, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, and SAGE, who together account for half of worldwide academic publishing revenues. 

At stake are issues such as whether publishers can stop authors from sharing their articles openly with other researchers and the public after they’ve been accepted into academic journals; whether the public has immediate, unfettered access to taxpayer funded research content; whether libraries can share content through Interlibrary Loan; and how much faculty and graduate students must pay publishers to get their articles published...."