Holly Else, Nature; Europe’s open-access drive escalates as university stand-offs spread
"Bold efforts to push academic publishing towards an open-access model
are gaining steam. Negotiators from libraries and university consortia
across Europe are sharing tactics on how to broker new kinds of
contracts that could see more articles appear outside paywalls. And
inspired by the results of a stand-off in Germany, they increasingly
declare that if they don’t like what publishers offer, they will refuse
to pay for journal access at all. On 16 May, a Swedish consortium became
the latest to say that it wouldn’t renew its contract, with publishing giant Elsevier.
Under
the new contracts, termed ‘read and publish’ deals, libraries still pay
subscriptions for access to paywalled articles, but their researchers
can also publish under open-access terms so that anyone can read their
work for free.
Advocates say such agreements could accelerate the progress of the open-access movement.
Despite decades of campaigning for research papers to be published
openly — on the grounds that the fruits of publicly funded research
should be available for all to read — scholarly publishing’s dominant
business model remains to publish articles behind paywalls and collect
subscriptions from libraries (see 'Growth of open access'). But if many
large library consortia strike read-and-publish deals, the proportion of
open-access articles could surge."
Showing posts with label library consortia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label library consortia. Show all posts
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