French National Agreement with Elsevier: Why We Should not Sign | Sciences communes

"This is a free translation of a previous french publication: Faut-il signer l’accord d’Elsevier? I’ve put it in the public domain: feel free to share. France is on the verge of signing a national agreement with Elsevier. The forthcoming deal has been announced a week ago by the main negotiator on the French side, Couperin, a consortium of public and research libraries. The announcement is short on details: the global price of the 5-years national subscription has not been communicated. Yet, a much deeper account has been leaked. Considering the information to be of public interest, a librarian, Daniel Bourrion, published this comprehensive document… before being force to withdraw it by his administration. Nothing really disappear on the Internet : the document soon reappeared on my blog and has, since then, been extensively disseminated. It appears the whole deal is to cost 190 millions. A disturbing amount as French Universities are going into dire economic troubles. Couperin claims the deal is quite favorable. While subscription prices have been continuously increasing for the past 30 years, they were actually lowered: 'On the five years, the mean annual prices paid by all the parties concerned will be inferior to the 2013 cost'. Not only is the new agreement less expensive, but it would also include several significant enhancements. The number of partnered institutions goes from 147 to over 600. Data mining is no longer submitted to the law of the jungle, but to a global legal framework. All theses points appear quite convincing. They have not shaken my intimate conviction: this agreement should not be signed ..."