Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Love affair with Reed begins to cool, Financial Times, February 9, 2004. An assessment of Reed Elsevier's financial health. Excerpt: "Most analysts agree that Reed is fundamentally strong. But there is growing evidence that the company's scientific publishing arm, which contributes about 28 per cent of sales and 40 per cent of profits, is being threatened. This is because of significant cutbacks in journal buying by some of Reed's largest customers, and scientists' increasing interest in cheaper alternative electronic publishing methods." Crispin Davis, Elsevier CEO, thinks the wave of cancellations in the US is a "red herring" and not representative of future trends. Beverlee French, director of shared digital content at the University of California's digital library, disagrees. Quoting French: "There are times when we librarians go to the academic faculty with budget problems and they say 'your job is to get more money'. This time, after seeing we spent $8m on Reed's electronic journals in 2003, they said 'we will be behind you if you decide to walk away'." (Thanks to David Prosser.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/09/2004 11:42:00 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.
