Librarians at North Carolina State University (NCSU) hate the expense and inflexibility of the bundling deal on offer from Elsevier. The NCSU subscription expires on December 31, and librarians want support from the campus to cancel ScienceDirect if negotiations with Elsevier don't produce an acceptable outcome. After hearing a presentation from the librarians, the NCSU Library Committee (consisting of faculty, staff, and students) voted unanimous support. The librarians also won the support of the Faculty Senate, the Staff Senate, and the Student Senate. The resolution approved by the Faculty Senate charges the NCSU library to maintain "strong and flexible control over the state funds entrusted to it." For more detail, see the December 4 issue of Library Journal Academic Newswire (not online), and Kenneth Ball, Senate Backs Libraries, Technician Online (the NCSU student newspaper), December 4, 2003. (PS: The University of Iowa is also considering the option of cancelling with Elsevier.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/04/2003 10:16:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
