120% Increase in Web of Science Leads to New Open Access Project

Sometimes we get tied up in our own world of legal publishing and forget that our colleagues in other types of libraries are fighting similar battles in their negotiations with vendors - and showing a lot more teeth than we are doing.  For example, the University of California recently said NO to a 400% rate increase in their Nature Publishing journals subscriptions.  They are still waiting for a reply from the publisher, and so am I.  I hope they win!

Yesterday, the University of Prince Edward Island released a similar letter to that of UC which advised their faculty and students that, due to a 120% increase in their Web of Science contract, the UPEI Library would be discontinuing that service.  The purpose of the UPEI and UC letters was to get the faculty and students to understand what was at stake.  Most people outside of the librarians and deans do not really "get" the price thing as it relates to scholarship.  Now they do, at least at UC and UPEI.

In addition to educating their clientele, UPEI goes a step further.  First, they set up a second page of alternative ways to accomplish similar tasks that researchers had used Web of Science to complete.  Second:

"UPEI is also leading an effort to create a free and open index to the world's scholarly literature called "Knowledge For All". This proposal is currently being sent to various Canadian and international library consortia in an effort to gain support for the project. One goal of Knowledge For All is to ensure that scholars and members of the broader public are no longer disenfranchised by a broken system of scholarly communication. We will provide the campus community with updates on this effort.

 

Please also contact me (566‑0460) if you have concerns or comments.

 

Mark Leggott, University Librarian"

I would like to applaud our counterparts at these schools for having the courage to say enough is enough and, more importantly, take a positive step to try and correct the situation.  Hopefully, AALL will be included in their solicitation and will respond, or perhaps it will be the law group at SLA who will be an active voice.  We shall see. (VS)