<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">(sorry for any cross-posting)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div>Dear colleagues, <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="">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.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">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. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">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.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Additionally, among other things, the consortia pledged to:</div><div class=""><ul class=""><li class="">Strengthen their local and regional publishing efforts (and try to prevent the internationalization of local and regional journals)</li><li class="">Reflect on what they can do to address the big deal lock-in, and analyze that potential of title by title purchase</li><li class="">Share information across consortia and work more closely together.</li></ul></div><div class="">For more information, you can read the declaration in <a href="http://reuniondeconsorcios.conricyt.mx/index.php/acuerdos/" class="">Spanish</a> and <a href="http://reuniondeconsorcios.conricyt.mx/index.php/acuerdos/?lang=en" class="">English</a>. The website for the consortium is here: <a href="http://reuniondeconsorcios.conricyt.mx/" class="">http://reuniondeconsorcios.conricyt.mx/</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div class="">[1] The meeting was organized by: El Consorcio Nacional de Recursos de Información Científica y Tecnológica (CONRICYT) in Mexico</div><div class="">la Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (CONICYT) and el Consorcio para el Acceso a la Información Científica de Chile (CINCEL) in Chile</div><div class="">el Instituto Brasileiro de Informaḉão em Ciência e Tecnologia (IBICT) in Brazil</div><div class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div class="">-----</div><div class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div apple-content-edited="true" class=""><div class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="">Kathleen Shearer</div><div class="">Executive Director, Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR)</div><div class=""><a href="mailto:m.kathleen.shearer@gmail.com" class="">m.kathleen.shearer@gmail.com</a> - +1 514 992 9068</div><div class="">Skype: kathleen.shearer2 - twitter: @KathleeShearer</div><div class=""><a href="http://www.coar-repositories.org/" class="">www.coar-repositories.org</a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>