U. of California and Nature Publishing Group Mend Fences - PageView - The Chronicle of Higher Education

"Librarians and scholars hoping that University of California researchers would make good on a threat to boycott the Nature Publishing Group over high journal [prices] are likely to be disappointed. The university and the publishing group issued a joint statement on Wednesday saying that they met on August 17 "to discuss our organizations' current licensing challenges and the larger issues of scholarly-communication sustainability." ...They described the meeting as a friendly affair, with each side acknowledging the other's contributions and value....Rich Schneider, an associate professor in the department of orthopedic surgery at the University of California at San Francisco, leads the University of California's Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication. An interview with Schneider suggested that it was not a lack of support for a possible boycott that had brought the university back to the negotiating table. "We had tremendous support from the faculty," he said of the university's decision to challenge the publisher. "We had hundreds of letters of support."...The Chronicle asked whether a boycott was no longer a possiblity. "Nothing’s off the table at this point," Schneider said. "But everybody’s really optimistic." ..."