The Varsity » Boycott of publishing giant Elsevier gathers pace

abernard102@gmail.com 2012-09-11

Summary:

“Over 12,000 academics, including 55 from the University of Toronto, have signed a petition to boycott Elsevier, a leading academic publisher in the scientific, technical and medical realms. The Dutch corporation has come under fire in recent months for its controversial business model, sky-high prices, and lobbying efforts to restrict academic freedom. ‘Elsevier is based on a business model in which academics do almost all the work for free,’ explains Dr. Rachel Barney, a philosophy professor at U of T... Much of the research in papers published in journals distributed by Elsevier is funded by taxpayer dollars, enabling the company to keep expenses low.  Elsevier sells these journals back to public institutions like the University of Toronto for tens of thousands of dollars, frequently bundling together different journals to justify raising the sticker price.  Under this arrangement, Elsevier reaped profits of approximately $12 billion in 2010, a 36 per cent profit margin that is almost unheard of in the publishing industry. ‘We’ve been talking about the astronomical journal price increases for quite a long time,’ said Caitlin Tillman, head of collection development for the University of Toronto’s library system. ‘What’s interesting about this Elsevier boycott is that it comes from the faculty, and not the libraries...‘  ‘They’ll bundle five or 10 together so that if you want one, you need to buy the whole set,’ said Julie Hannaford, Associate Librarian for the Social Sciences and Humanities at U of T.  Journal prices have been rising for over 25 years, says Tillman, adding, ‘I would say the average price increase was four to five per cent.’  U of T’s libraries receive a yearly two per cent funding increase to cover inflation costs. But the price of journal subscriptions, particularly in science, technology and medicine, have outpaced this allowance, rising by around seven to nine per cent every year explains Tillman.  As a result, journals eat up more of libraries’ budgets, both at U of T and abroad...  Last year, the University of Toronto cut all of its print subscriptions to journals that offered digital subscriptions. Tillman warns that ‘sooner rather then later’ the library will have to make cuts that effect content.  Some suggest that part of the problem is the broader structure of academia... Publication credits in certain reputable journals are a key metric for hiring and promoting professors, and it increasingly serves in admissions processes to competitive research programs... A growing sense of frustration with Elsevier was further cemented when the company last year announced its support for controversial American copyright laws including the Stop Online Piracy Act, the Personal Information Protection Act and the Research Works Act... Steve Easterbrook, a computer science professor at U of T and a signatory on the petition, says he joined the boycott because of rising costs and bundling practices, but ‘above all [because of] their attempts to restrict open access journals.’ ‘When I publish something, it’s because I believe it’s worth sharing. I want anyone who wants to read my work to be able to read my work,’ says Easterbrook. Easterbrook now publishes his work on his own website under a creative commons license, as well as through traditional print publications... At U of T, a self-archiving system called T-space allows academics to make their work available online... The European Commission announced this summer that all research published from 2014 through 2020 that is funded by the Commission’s more than $100 billion in grants must be made freely and openly accessible.  The commission’s decision followed on the heels of an announcement in the UK, committing to making publicly funded research freely available by 2014... In April, the Library Advisory Committee of Harvard University, the most affluent post-secondary institution in the world, published a report calling the rising price of journals ‘fiscally unsustainable’ and ‘academically restrictive.’ According to the report, Harvard spends $3.5 million annually on subscriptions to corporate publishers like Elsevier...”

Link:

http://thevarsity.ca/2012/09/10/boycott-of-publishing-giant-elsevier-gathers-pace/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.business_models oa.publishers oa.policies oa.licensing oa.comment oa.government oa.usa oa.legislation oa.rwa oa.nih oa.green oa.advocacy oa.signatures oa.petitions oa.boycotts oa.copyright oa.libraries oa.cc oa.ir oa.uk oa.impact oa.costs oa.prestige oa.librarians oa.prices oa.funders oa.profits oa.harvard.u oa.budgets oa.sopa oa.pipa oa.cancellations oa.u.toronto oa.horizon2020 oa.elesvier oa.europe oa.repositories oa.libre

Date tagged:

09/11/2012, 11:02

Date published:

09/11/2012, 07:02