Ars Technica has an interesting article about the on-going open access wars. University libraries, like everyone else, have to operate on a budget and fee increases from journal publishers is putting the squeeze on those budgets. Librarians are starting to fight back. I’ve already written about the University of California’s refusal to renew its contract with Elsevier and Ars Technica’s article documents another data point in the struggle.
Florida State University’s library has also refused to renew their Elsevier contract and despite dire predictions from the publisher about even costlier per view charges, FSU does not appear to be suffering. Elsevier told them they could expect a one million dollar increase in costs but to everyone’s surprise, the library has spent only $20,000 in the eight months after their cancellation.
The article makes clear the UC and FSU are still in the minority but that pressure is increasing on the publishers and the revolt is gathering steam. As the article points out, you can understand why the publishers are loathe to give up their business models. They get their content for free, use volunteers to referee and edit it, and sell it back to the institutions that financed the research for a premium price.
Elsevier has a new CEO who has shown a willingness to be more flexible. Perhaps open access will move from a dream to a reality sooner than we hoped. Already, Ars Technica says, 31% of journal articles published in 2019 are not behind a pay wall.