From: Colin Steele <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2018 00:37:57 +0000
Interesting to see if this European initiative, just documented in the *Times
Higher Education*, flows on to other countries. Best Colin
Times Higher Education <https://www.timeshighereducation.com/>
German and Swedish libraries shrug off Elsevier shutdown
No sign of breakthrough as boycott yet to have significant impact on
publisher
August 8, 2018
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- By David Matthews
<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/author/david-matthews>
High price: in Germany, talks over a new national contract with Elsevier
broke down because of concerns over rising costs
Losing access to new content from the world’s biggest academic publisher
might sound like a nightmare for university libraries.
But, a month after being cut off from new Elsevier articles, librarians in
Sweden have reported only a handful of complaints, while in Germany,
institutions said that they have had to deal with relatively few requests
for blocked papers.
[image: No access]
<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/talks-collapse-germany-rejects-unacceptable-elsevier-offer>
Talks collapse as Germany rejects ‘unacceptable’ Elsevier offer
<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/talks-collapse-germany-rejects-unacceptable-elsevier-offer>
*Read more*
<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/talks-collapse-germany-rejects-unacceptable-elsevier-offer>
The two countries are being watched closely by librarians in other
countries to see how feasible it is to ditch big publishers, either
permanently or as part of a contract-negotiating strategy, as they push for
periodicals to move towards an open access model. It is one of the first
big tests of university resilience in the face of no access – Elsevier had
previously stopped short
<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/will-other-countries-follow-germany-battle-elsevier>
of cutting off Germany.
In Sweden, libraries have been without access to content published since 30
June after the country’s university negotiating consortium decided in May
<http://forskningsrelaterat.hb.se/2018/05/16/bibsam-takes-a-stand-for-open-access-cancels-elsevier-deal/?lang=en>
to end its contract with Elsevier because of rising costs and what it saw
as an insufficient offer on open access.
In Germany, meanwhile, talks over a new national contract that had dragged
on unsuccessfully for more than a year and a half broke down
<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/talks-collapse-germany-rejects-unacceptable-elsevier-offer>
last
month over similar issues, and libraries have been without access to new
material since 10 July.
Demand for articles is relatively low during the summer holidays, while
librarians arguably have an incentive to downplay any problems to
strengthen their negotiating hand, and pressure on libraries could grow as
an ever greater proportion of Elsevier material becomes unavailable.
But so far, Swedish librarians surveyed by *Times Higher Education *have
reported a handful of complaints, at most.
“Up until now, three researchers have made complaints [that I am aware
of],” said Jakob Harnesk, library director at Karlstad University
<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/karlstad-university>.
“Researchers that express support for the cancellation by far outnumber the
negative ones.”
One library head, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that they had
received one call from a researcher concerned about not being able to
access new issues of a specific journal. “The rest of the very few comments
we have got have been supportive,” they said.
Swedish libraries are able to get around the blockage through inter-library
loans – borrowing papers from libraries that still have access, for example
those abroad. “So long as inter-library loan is an option, I see no
problem,” said David Lawrence, director of Linköping University
<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/linkoping-university>
library.
Wilhelm Widmark, director of Stockholm University
<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/stockholm-university>
library, said that he had not yet received many requests for loans, and
suspected instead that scholars were sharing articles. “We haven't had any
complaints yet,” he said. “We have only received some feedback from
researchers who support our cancellation.”
------------------------------
In Germany, Bernhard Mittermaier, a member of the negotiating team for
Project Deal, the country’s national negotiating consortium, said that,
judging by a recent internal survey of about 30 institutions, there are on
the whole “no complaints and no reactions” to the lack of content.
In the weeks since new content has been unavailable, German institutions on
average have had to request 20 papers on loan from other libraries, he
said. “That’s no problem at all,” he said. “This can be done by the
director of the library in the evening, from the sofa”.
Each loan costs €6 (£5.34), he said – an expense dwarfed by the savings
that libraries were making by not subscribing to Elsevier journals.
Depending on their size, some libraries had been paying up to €800,000 a
year for Elsevier content, he said; they now therefore had a lot more money
in their budgets and some were now investing this saving into open access
publishing instead.
But, if Germany and Sweden are not under any immediate pressure to seek a
deal, neither seemingly is Elsevier. The share price of its parent company,
RELX, rose during July, and in the last week of the month it posted results
for the first half of 2018 that reassured analysts
<http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/201629/relxs-first-half-results-ease-concerns-over-german-and-swedish-universities-dispute-201629.html>
that the dispute in Germany and Sweden had not slowed revenue growth. Until
it cut off access in July, the publisher had in effect been providing free
access
<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/will-other-countries-follow-germany-battle-elsevier>
to more than 200 German institutions since the beginning of 2018.
The German strategy is still to wait for the pressure to build on Elsevier
and ultimately strike a new deal with them, rather than make the current
state of affairs permanent, said Dr Mittermaier. He did acknowledge that
there was a “risk” that some libraries, happy with the savings that they
were currently making, would decide not to join any new national deal.
But German researchers were stepping up pressure in other ways, by
declining to submit articles, conduct peer review and stepping down from
the editorial boards of journals, he added.
An Elsevier spokeswoman said: “Trends in access requests show nothing
unusual in Germany and Sweden. Trends in paper submissions are not
discernible after such a short period of time.
“We remain open to constructive talks to find a sustainable national
solution in both Germany and Sweden.”
---------------------------------------------
Colin Steele
Emeritus Fellow
ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
The Australian National University
Room 3.31, Beryl Rawson Building #13
Acton, ACT, 2601
Australia
P: + 61 2 6125 8983
E: [log in to unmask]
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