University of California terminates contract with Elsevier over journal costs and open access | News | Chemistry World

"Staff and students at the University of California are waiting to find out when Elsevier will cut off access to its journals, after the university ended its contract with the publishing giant. The university says negotiations to renew a contract across its 10 campuses broke down because Elsevier refused to agree to universal open access for the institutions’ research or to lower the costs of journal subscriptions. Rumours are circulating that some academics will no longer review for Elsevier and a petition has been started by a University of California researcher calling for a boycott of the publishing giant.

Ivy Anderson, associate executive director of the University of California’s digital library (CDL) and co-chair of the negotiating team, says ‘they did offer a path to increase open access, but with a significant increase in costs overall. Our goal is to repurpose current expenditure, not increase it.’ The university wanted Elsevier to integrate the cost of subscriptions to its journals and article processing charges – currently between $150–$5000 (£114–£3800) per article – for publishing papers open access into a single fee. But they calculate that 100% open access would have cost the university $10 million a year, on top of subscriptions, which have been rising year-on-year...."