[GOAL] Elsevier journals - some facts

[Richard Poynder]

List members may be interested in a blog post by Cambridge mathematician
Timothy Gowers in which he publishes the results of Freedom of Information
requests he made to UK Russell Group universities asking them for details of
the money they spend each year for access to Elsevier journals. 

 

The blog post lists the figures for 19 universities.

 

The post can be read here:
http://gowers.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/elsevier-journals-some-facts/

 

A summary of the post can be read here:
http://access.okfn.org/2014/04/24/the-cost-of-academic-publishing/

 

RLUK's response to the post can be read here:
http://www.rluk.ac.uk/news/university-spend-big-deals/

 

Some graphs on the figures Gowers published have been produced here:
http://neurodojo.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/cost-of-elsevier-journals-by-univers
ity.html

 

Here is a quote from Timothy Gowers:

 

"Is there anything more that can be done? One answer that is often given is
that the open access movement is now unstoppable, and that it is only a
matter of time before the current system will have changed significantly.
However, the pace of change is slow, and the alternative system that is most
strongly promoted - open access articles paid for by article processing
charges - is one that mathematicians tend to find unpalatable. (And not only
mathematicians: they are extremely unpopular in the humanities.) I don't
want to rehearse the arguments for and against APCs in this post, except to
say that there is no sign that they will help to bring down costs any time
soon and no convincing market mechanism by which one might expect them to."

 

Richard Poynder

 

 

 

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