Times Higher Education - Elsevier defends stance on anti-open-access bill

... “A row has been rumbling along for weeks over the publisher's support for the Research Works Act...which seeks to overturn and ban policies such as the one adopted by the National Institutes of Health requiring taxpayer-funded research papers to be deposited in open-access repositories within a year of publication... Thousands of people have signed a petition denouncing Elsevier's stance, while a number of prominent academics have vowed to stop publishing in and refereeing for Elsevier journals... However, in a statement to Times Higher Education, Elsevier insists that allegations that it is ‘anti-science’ are misplaced. ‘We respect the freedom of authors to make their own decisions, and we are happy to engage to discuss their concerns,’ it says...’Access to published content is greater and at its lowest cost per use than ever before...’ ‘We offer purchasing options from pay-per-view, title by title, to a wide range of collections; however there is no contesting that the introduction of optional packages has added enormous access at fractions of the list prices and resulted in reduced cost per use...’”