A delegation from the NCSU Libraries gave a presentation on their contract negotiations with Reed Elsevier for its ScienceDirect online product.
David Shuford, a master’s student in genetics, said that Reed Elsevier is offering NCSU Libraries, along with the Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN), a contract deal that is unfavorable in light of budget problems that the libraries are facing.
Reed’s corporate greed
Greed indeed. They also just started charging for Publishers Weekly Daily for Booksellers (a daily e-mail)–you now have to be a magazine subscriber to receive the free e-mail (even if you don’t WANT the print edition). And who knows, Library Journal (part of the Reed Elsevier Empire) may be the next to charge for a peek at their website.
Conflicted over LJ
I’m so conflicted about Library Journal, I like the magazine, and I’ve met a few people who work there, and loved them both…BUT…they are still under the Elsevier umbrella.
Such is life I suppose, sometimes there are trade offs. Do I write for them and support Elsevier, or do I say no thanks and stand up for the little guy? Already answered, but it really was due to the people who work at LJ, they’re just a good bunch of folks, and I think it’s OK to support good people, no matter who signs their pay checks.
This is why I think there might be a market for a new print journal in the LIS-World.
I still have my fingers crossed for the million dollar buy-out offer from Elsevier for LISNews! 😉
Being a wet blanket … if this trend continues of cancelling Elsevier titles, would the U.S. be charged of violating WTO policies?
Given that Reed Elsevier is a foreign company
Re:Being a wet blanket
I can’t see why it would considering that it is individual entities not wanting to do business due to high cost. Admittedly, I’m not that familiar with WTO trade practices, but it’s not like the US gubmint is telling the institutions not to do business with them. The individual institutions are telling Elsevier that they can’t afford it, so go away.
Re:Being a wet blanket
I believe that, under WTO rules, actors (i.e. state and local government) below the federal/national level can held under the agreements of the national actors. I know there are a fair number of WTO critics who argue that these agreements are an attack on sovereignty.
If this is so, Elsevier could claim that 1) public universities (such as NCSU) are quasi-government entities and thus are state actors and 2) private universities research so much money directly from the federal government (in the form of research grants AND financial aid) that they too function as government actors. It’s not the simplest or most logical argument (especially part 2), but it could be made and it might have currency within the WTO.