The decision by one of the world's largest university systems to end its relationship with the world's largest scholarly publisher is just as much a clash over universal open access as it is about unsustainable costs, according to postsecondary libraries officials.
The University of California announced last week it had reached an impasse with Elsevier, which publishes more than 2,500 journals, after eight months of negotiations. At issue, University of California officials said, was Elsevier's proposed fee model that would have seen authors pay publishing fees on top of the university's $11-million annual subscription fee.
The decision by University of California - whose 10 campuses are the source of about 10 per cent of Elsevier's American research content - has set the industry abuzz. A spokesperson for a coalition of U.S. open-access advocates told sciencemag.org it was impossible to overstate the significance of the boycott in the United States.
