Elsevier: le università tedesche sospendono la trattativa. La CRUI invece si sdraia. | ROARS

[Google transl.] Elsevier: German universities suspend negotiations. CRUI, on the other hand, is lying down.

In Germany, as well as in Sweden, the Netherlands, France and even Italy, the scientific information (electronic periodicals) of the major publishers is acquired through a consortium. This is so that the institutions can have a contractual weight in the face of scientific publishing giants. On the homepage of the German consortium DEAL we find this announcement: "Update 2018-07-06: The negotiations with Elsevier have been suspended" and we also find a rather significant press review that justifies the decision of German universities to stop all negotiations with Elsevier. "Germany and Sweden have just refused to keep paying what Elsevier is demanding for access to their journal portfolio [...] Both countries were seeking sustainable nation-wide deals for their academic institutions that covered both the cost of reading journals and the charges for publishing free-to-read articles in them" explains a post from PloS' blog entitled "Europe Expanded the "No Elsevier Deal" Zone & This Could Change Everything". What about Italy? Lying on Elsevier's positions (and interests) judging by the surreal news that we find on the CRUI website: "Elsevier, a world leader company specializing in medical and scientific information, and the Conference of Italian University Rectors (CRUI) have reached an agreement that will allow Italian academic institutions to benefit from the possibility of continuous access to Elsevier's ScienceDirect digital platform. [...] The details of the agreement were finalized at the end of June, following negotiations at the end of 2017, and provide for the extension of the partnership between CRUI and Elsevier for the period 2018-2022.