US universities threaten to cancel subscriptions to Elsevier journals

Several of the United State's most prestigious universities are threatening to cancel their subscriptions to scientific journals published by Elsevier, in protest at what they call exorbitant pricing. Stanford University's Faculty Senate, the latest to take action on the issue, also called on academic staff to consider placing their research in “open access” journals.

Other universities to pass similar resolutions in recent months include Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke, Cornell, the University of Connecticut, the University of California, and North Carolina State University. University librarians say that journal price hikes combined with a weak dollar and falling budgets leave them no choice but to cancel subscriptions.

Michael Keller, University Librarian at Stanford, said: “It's not just that the prices have risen much faster than inflation, it's the practice of ‘bundling’ journals together. Often we have to buy hundreds of journals we don't want to get those we do. We're hoping this new policy will lead to a situation where scientific and medical publishing is less dominated by corporations whose interests are inimical to the academic ideal of free exchange of ideas.”

He said that Elsevier was not the only publisher to attract criticism from university librarians but that it stood out “for being particularly bad.” The company was specifically named in the resolution passed by the Stanford Faculty Senate. Elsevier declined to comment on the Stanford decision.

Eric Merkel-Sobotta, director of corporate relations at Elsevier, said his company did not force institutions to buy “bundles” of journals. “We have volume discounts and special offers, but if an institution wants to subscribe to just one journal, or three, or all 1800, that's up to them. Naturally, the price per journal is lower when we offer volume discounts. Overall, our prices are very competitive.”

He said that Elsevier was being singled out for criticism because of its size. “When you walk into a zoo, the first animal you see is the elephant.” He added, however, that Elsevier was concerned about the prospect of widespread subscription cancellations and would be contacting Stanford to discuss the issue.

Professor Peter Suber, an advocate for open access in Maine, said that although open access publishing now accounts for only about 5% of research articles, internet publishing technology raises the prospect of producing peer reviewed research for a fraction of the costs paid by established journals. “If it's on the web, supplementary copies are practically free. We're also seeing advertising now on some open access websites.”

Andrew Herkovic, assistant director of Stanford Libraries, said: “We don't expect to drive the for-profit sector out of business, and personally I doubt we'll even force them to lower their prices, but in the long term I think we'll see a coexistence of the two approaches, plus a lot of journals offering compromise solutions, or even letting authors choose how they want to publish.”

Robert Simoni, professor of biology at Stanford, who voted in the Senate decision, said: “It was unanimous except for one person from the business school. There's still the problem, however, of persuading colleagues to switch to not-for-profit publishers. Many in my field are obsessed with the idea that if they don't publish in Cell, their careers are dead.”

• This week in Britain, parliament's science and technology committee began an inquiry into journal pricing, which will look into the issue of “big deal schemes,” or the bundling of journal packages sold to academic institutions.

The committee's chairman, Ian Gibson MP, said: “Journals are at the heart of the scientific process. Researchers, teachers, and students must have easy access to scientific publications at a fair price. The committee will have some very tough questions for publishers, libraries, and government on these issues.”