Four Concerns About the new UC-Elsevier Deal | The Taper: Copyright and Information Policy at the UVA Library

The new deal between the University of California System (the UC) and Elsevier was announced earlier this week with much fanfare, the UC declaring it a “breakthrough,” Elsevier touting it as a “win for researchers,” and the LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik calling it “a leap forward for the open-access movement.” The UC has been a trailblazer in supporting open access in a variety of ways, and they deserve a huge amount of credit for that. Their system-wide open access policy and their work supporting self-archiving in the UC repository is awe-inspiring, as is their investment in surfacing and supporting many pathways to OA. Their negotiating toolkit was a major help as we organized our own efforts with Elsevier.

While libraries in the US expressed solidarity with the UC’s fight with Elsevier over pricing and open access when they walked away from negotiations in 2019, some US libraries, librarians, and even some OA publishers seem to be skeptical of the UC’s approach to ‘transforming’ scholarly publishing through its new deal with Elsevier. Why? I can only speak for myself, but here, in a nutshell, are some key things that make me hesitate to cheer this new deal

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