Thursday, April 26, 2012

Harvard suggests that its faculty resign from editing overpriced journals

In this succinct memo, an advisory council at Harvard says that
major periodical subscriptions, especially to electronic journals published by historically key providers, cannot be sustained: continuing these subscriptions on their current footing is financially untenable.
It recommends the following course of action to the faculty:
 If on the editorial board of a journal involved, determine if it can be published as open access material, or independently from publishers that practice pricing described above. If not, consider resigning.
It also specifies that "it is untenable for contracts with at least two major providers to continue on the basis identical with past agreements.", but doesn't mention which two.  Presumably they are a subset of {Springer, Elsevier, Wiley}.