Journal boycott gaining steam at UW-Madison (Feb. 21, 2012)

“They are mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore. That describes an emerging response from more than 6,000 scientists to Elsevier, publisher of more than 2,500 scientific journals... As the largest journal publisher in the world, Elsevier is able to command hefty subscription fees at university libraries. But almost all of the research that gets written up in these journals was originally funded by the public... The boycott began with a Jan. 21 blog post by Timothy Gowers, a British mathematician who channeled his concern about Elsevier's practices and prices... has gained more than 6,000 signatories, including dozens from UW-Madison. ‘Fairness and economics are central to the boycott,’ says Karl Broman, a statistician and professor in the School of Medicine and Public Health. ‘The main issue is that scientists want their papers to be read and available, and not just to scientists at well-funded universities. We are spending, collectively, a good amount of money that goes toward profit for these journal companies, and that could be redirected.’ Broman... favors open-access journals like the PLoS... Elsevier 's support for the Research Works Act, which would withdraw that open-access requirement, is another motivation for the boycott... Julie Schneider, director of Ebling Library for the Health Sciences... says... advocates of open access favor the Federal Research Public Access Act,  ‘which would expand the NIH public-access policy to the 10 federal agencies with more than $100-million in grants...’ Librarians have long bemoaned the steady rise in journal costs. Ebling Library spends about one-third of its budget -- about $1-million a year -- for subscriptions, she says. ‘For large publishers, including Elsevier, subscription prices are going up approximately 6 to 8 percent every year.’ Broader access to journals is in the public interest, Schneider says. ‘It can't help but advance knowledge when you make things available 24/7. So much of what we do at UW-Madison is interdisciplinary, international, so it makes sense to share as much with colleagues as possible. And taxpayers paid for these articles, and taxpayers should be able to read them.’ ‘Philosophically, people see it as a positive thing to make these articles available, to make them easy to share with colleagues,’ Schneider says. Through the NIH public-access requirement, ‘we are able to make thousands of journal articles available to the citizens of Wisconsin and the world,’ Schneider adds."