I’ve written many times (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) about the open access wars between universities and academic publishers. In a move that almost certainly signals the beginning of the end game, the University of California has refused to renew its Elsevier subscriptions. This isn’t a small matter. Not only does UC spend 11 million dollars a year on Elsevier subscriptions but it is the largest producer of scholarly papers in the U.S. and Elsevier publishes about 18% of them. Other university consortia have done the same and as with UC, Elsevier has cut them off.
The UC, for its part, says that losing access to the journals will be inconvenient but only inconvenient. They already have plans in place to obtain needed papers through interlibrary loans and other means. They didn’t mention Sci-Hub and other illegal sources but you can bet that researchers will be making use of them. They probably already are because it’s easier to get a paper from them even if you have legal access.
The next step would be for the UC to discourage publication in Elsevier journals. No one’s said they’re going to do that but many researchers are already refusing to publish in their journals and the movement appears to be growing.
Elsevier and the other publishers have had a free ride for a long time. Academics write the papers, edit them, and referee them and the publishers then charge them for access to their own work. The UC’s actions are hopeful signs that that disgraceful situation is coming to an end.