Friday’s Guardian reports that the British House of Commons’ science and technology committee plans to look into scientific publishing early next year to explore alternate publishing methods, like open-access journals, in the wake of growing dissatisfaction with academic publisher Elsevier’s business practices.
Student senators at NCSU support the libraries’ position not to renew certain Elsevier subscriptions.
from the ResourceShelf
Speaking of journals that use publishing methods circumventing the big publishers, here’s an excellent resource for finding “journals that use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access.” The database includes basic information about the journal, like its language and publisher, as well as a link to its Web [...]
especially from publisher Elsevier. Their Issues in Scholarly Communication site explains the situation and their plan.
“We now pay ca. $1.7 million dollars for Elsevier journals. (Those journals account for less than 2% of the serials to which the Cornell Library subscribes, but that cost is equal to over 20% of the Library?s total serials [...]
There’s a movement among certain groups of librarians to seek alternative publishing methods and publications because of the skyrocketing prices of some print journals. I remember hearing that one library’s most expensive subscription was more than $30,000 a year–and that was several years ago. Carl, who recently began working on the Dermatology Online [...]