[GOAL] Open access: Could defeat be snatched from the jaws of victory?

[Richard Poynder]

When news broke early in 2019 that the University of California had walked
away from licensing negotiations with the world's largest scholarly
publisher (Elsevier), a wave of triumphalism spread through the OA
Twittersphere. 

 

The talks had collapsed because of Elsevier's failure to offer UC what it
demanded: a new-style Big Deal in which the university got access to all of
Elsevier's paywalled content plus OA publishing rights for all UC authors -
what UC refers to as a "Read and Publish" agreement. In addition, UC wanted
Elsevier to provide this at a reduced cost. Given its size and influence,
UC's decision was hailed as "a shot heard around the academic world". 

 

The news had added piquancy coming as it did in the wake of a radical new
European OA initiative called Plan S. Proposed in 2018 by a group of
European funders calling themselves cOAlition S, the aim of Plan S is to
make all publicly funded research open access by 2021. 

 

Buoyed up by these two developments open access advocates concluded that -
17 years after the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) - the goal of
universal (or near-universal) open access is finally within reach. Or as the
Berkeley librarian who led the UC negotiations put it, "a tipping point" has
been reached. 

 

But could defeat be snatched from the jaws of success?

 

More here:
https://poynder.blogspot.com/2019/11/open-access-could-defeat-be-snatched.ht
ml

 

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