An Open Letter to Elsevier

“Since the beginning of the argument with Elsevier over their support of the Research Works Act (RWA) in the US and the announcement of the boycott of the publisher, I have been keen to stimulate dialogue. Elsevier seems to be interested in the same thing and their response to the research community, hesitant at first, is now being relayed by open letters from the organisation... Elsevier might like to think of itself as the friend of the research community but it doesn’t always treat it that way, as shown by the recently concluded negotiations on journal subscriptions with JISC Collections, the body that negotiates with publishers on behalf of UK Higher Education institutions. Having had to swallow above-inflation subscription prices rises for several years... the UK HE sector now spends nearly £200m per year on access to journals and databases. That is about 10% of the QR budget paid to universities by HEFCE... However, since the credit crunch shrinking university budgets have obliged Research Libraries UK (RLUK), the organisation that speaks for the major research intensive universities and played a leading part in the negotiations, to take a firmer stand. Indeed they felt compelled late in 2010 to threaten the cancellation of the big deals (bundled subscriptions of numerous titles) with publishers like Elsevier and Wiley-Blackwell as part of their negotiating strategy... Moreover, if Elsevier truly desires to encourage greater transparency with its partners in the academic community, they could start by releasing RLUK from the confidentiality clauses that they imposed on the deal that was reached at the end of last year. Debby Shorley, the head librarian at Imperial College who was active in the negotiation process, cannot tell me how much she pays for Elsevier journals. We therefore cannot have an informed conversation about decisions on journal subscriptions. That’s not helpful... Elsevier is correct to claim that it offers a range of open access options to authors but I think publishers are increasingly aware that the scientific community wants more. According to a briefing note I obtained from Bernstein Research (1), a publisher’s-only workshop was held in the spring of 2011 to address the questions, “Can we learn not just to live with open access, but to love it as well? Has the time come to turn the threat into an opportunity?”...