Why are universities ending the Elsevier open access agreements? | Impact of Social Sciences

"For those wondering why three universities (including my own) have decided not to continue with their Elsevier Read-and-Publish Deals, the explanation is both simple and complicated.

It has undoubtedly been triggered by the financial difficulty that UK higher education finds itself in, but it is also indicative of unresolved issues in academic publishing. It comes against a backdrop where Transitional agreements (TAs) with commercial publishers have been found to be unsustainable and the sector is looking to negotiate the next generation of open access agreements. It is also about the structure of library content budgets, the different ways libraries serve their research communities, and the parts of library administration that those research communities (and their trade publications) choose to take interest in. We have outlined our approach at Sheffield, but it is worth considering the implications of this move more widely...."