Today's issue of Library Journal has an unsigned note, Four Small Minnesota Colleges Say No to the "Big Deal". Excerpt: "Barbara Fister, librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College, said that the problem goes beyond the Science Direct contract: 'We tend to demonize Elsevier to some extent, but a lot of publishers, including some scholarly societies, are also part of the problem. In general, we need to make clear to publishers that libraries aren't an endless supply of revenue. We've hit the wall.' Fishel says Macalester has increased its support of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and became members of open access publisher Public Library of Science. 'We are monitoring the open access initiative closely,' she says, noting that faculty outreach will also play a large role in bringing about much needed change."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/25/2004 01:29:00 PM.
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.
