From Berkeley News
Why UC split with publishing giant Elsevier
By Gretchen Kell
Earlier today, the University of California ended negotiations with Elsevier, one of the world’s largest scholarly journal publishers. UC’s main goal since negotiations began in July had been to secure universal open access publishing of UC research, so that anyone in the world could view it, free of charge — as well as to curb the rising costs associated with for-profit journals. Talks heated up after Dec. 31, when UC’s multimillion-dollar subscription expired.
Berkeley News asked University Librarian Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, co-chair of UC’s negotiation team, more about what’s happened and what it means for UC scholars and the public.
Why did UC decide to end negotiations today?
Elsevier made a new, quite complex, but novel proposal to us at the end of January. On Monday, our negotiating team gave them a written response outlining our appreciation for Elsevier’s effort, but saying that conditions had to be met for us to sign a contract, and that we thought we were pretty far apart. We knew if they couldn’t accommodate us, there was not much point in continuing to negotiate at this time.
Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason is the University Librarian and Chief Digital Scholarship Officer, University of California, Berkeley, and a professor in the UC Berkeley School of Information and the Department of Economics.
