#ProQuestGate (updated) | rachel ellen clark

" ... I am furious and terrified about what this means for my ability to research. On a larger scale, I am furious and terrified about what this means for the future of scholarly research when necessary databases are owned by profit-driven corporations. EEBO is so exorbitantly priced that only the wealthiest institutions can afford it. My institution, a small liberal arts college that focuses on teaching, is putting increasing pressure on those of us without tenure to produce more research in order to get tenure. At the same time, it lacks the resources to provide an institutional subscription to EEBO, a necessary database for my work. With this move, ProQuest could be pricing me out of tenure. ProQuest seems to think that eliminating the RSA subscription will force libraries to subscribe. I’m not sure where they think increasingly cash-strapped libraries can find money for such an expensive subscription. Does ProQuest think that we enjoy not having institutional subscriptions? That we don’t want our students to have access? Of course we do. But if we could afford EEBO, we would already have EEBO. This is not only a wrongheaded move, but also a shortsighted and ridiculous one. Instead of enabling RSA members to subscribe as a way to persuade libraries that (should there one day be enough money) an institutional subscription is useful, ProQuest is cutting down on its users for no gain. Decisions like this make it clear why scholarship and scholarly databases need to be open access, not controlled by profit-driven corporations ... Update, 10/29/2015: ProQuest has reversed its position. The RSA has sent the following email to its members ... "