For 17 months, the Bibsam Consortium did not have an agreement with the world’s largest scholarly publisher, Elsevier. There is now a summary of the consequences for the consortium, the concerned organizations and their researchers.
As a leader in the global movement toward open access to publicly funded research, the University of California is taking a firm stand by deciding not to renew its subscriptions with Elsevier. Despite months of contract negotiations, Elsevier was unwilling to meet UC’s key goal: securing universal open access to UC research while containing the rapidly escalating costs associated with for-profit journals.