[GOAL] Latin American and Caribbean consortia express concerns about APCs

[Kathleen Shearer]

(sorry for any cross-posting)

Dear colleagues, 

I wanted to share with you a recent declaration that was issued during a meeting of national consortia from Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain. The meeting, which took place in Mexico in early September 2017, was organized by the Ministries of Science and Technology from Mexico, Chile and Brazil [1], and attended by representatives from 10 countries responsible for negotiating with publishers for national access to scientific/research publications.

The statement expresses the concerns of the participating organizations over the costs of APCs (article publishing charges) and outlines their perspective on international discussions around flipping subscriptions to APC open access. 

Most notably, the consortia were in agreement that APCs will not help to reduce costs, but rather contribute to the already inflationary situation with the current international scholarly publishing system.

Additionally, among other things, the consortia pledged to:
Strengthen their local and regional publishing efforts (and try to prevent the internationalization of local and regional journals)
Reflect on what they can do to address the big deal lock-in, and analyze that potential of title by title purchase
Share information across consortia and work more closely together.
For more information, you can read the declaration in Spanish <http://reuniondeconsorcios.conricyt.mx/index.php/acuerdos/> and English <http://reuniondeconsorcios.conricyt.mx/index.php/acuerdos/?lang=en>. The website for the consortium is here: http://reuniondeconsorcios.conricyt.mx/ <http://reuniondeconsorcios.conricyt.mx/>


[1] The meeting was organized by: El Consorcio Nacional de Recursos de Información Científica y Tecnológica (CONRICYT) in Mexico
la Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (CONICYT) and el Consorcio para el Acceso a la Información Científica de Chile (CINCEL) in Chile
el Instituto Brasileiro de Informaḉão em Ciência e Tecnologia (IBICT) in Brazil

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Kathleen Shearer
Executive Director, Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR)
m.kathleen.shearer at gmail.com <mailto:m.kathleen.shearer at gmail.com> - +1 514 992 9068
Skype: kathleen.shearer2 - twitter: @KathleeShearer
www.coar-repositories.org <http://www.coar-repositories.org/>
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