From: "Peretsman-Clement, Gail" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2017 01:38:19 +0000

Hello All,

Picking up on Kevin's  statement about the "cherished belief that we
cannot cancel Elsevier subscriptions without bring down the wrath of
researchers on our heads":

I can report that last year's cancellation of hundreds of STEM titles
at Caltech sees no correlation with user complaints or requests for
interlibrary loan or purchased articles on demand (we even offer RUSH
service gratis).

You only procure that incredibly useful data if you are willing to
exit big deals; cancel journals with unreasonable cost-per-downloads;
and subscribe, title by title, to those journals with sufficient ROI
to warrant the expense.

- Gail

Gail P. Clement  | Head of Research Services  | Caltech Library  |
Mail Code 1-43  | Pasadena CA 91125-4300  | 626-395-1203
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5494-4806 | library.caltech.edu



-----Original Message-----
From: "Smith, Kevin L" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2017 12:58:54 +0000

Anthony,

There is a saying, that I have seen attributed to economist Katheryn
Price, to the effect that the moment a company makes a mistake in
pricing, they either damage their profits or their reputation.  I
think Elsevier has made that mistake wildly in the direction of
overpricing and therefore have seriously damaged their reputation.
Indeed, they seem to make quite a number of public relations missteps,
which was the point of my original comment.

So it is possible that researchers who elect to use Sci-Hub even when
Elsevier is available to them are voting with their feet.  They may
still submit to Elsevier journals in spite of their distaste -- which
is very easy to detect in any conversation with scholarly authors --
because of perceived P&T pressures, but prefer to use some other
source for their own research.  The other possible reason that occurs
to me is convenience.  Since I have never tried to find an article
using Sci-Hub, I cannot assess the merits of that as a possible
reason, but those two explanations are both possible, and not mutually
exclusive.

Your second and third paragraph together seem to suggest that
librarians and others responsible for subscriptions are
over-estimating the importance of Elsevier, don't they?  If lots of
researchers have subscription-based access to Elsevier, but many of
those same researchers are opting to use Sci-Hub instead, maybe we
need to reconsider our cherished belief that we cannot cancel Elsevier
subscriptions without bring down the wrath of researchers on our
heads.  It is possible that our faculty members are way ahead of us
librarians in pursuing new avenues for scholarly communications.

I am sorry you find my comments so predictable; I suppose I can only
wish that they required as little study or thought as you seem to
believe.

Kevin


Kevin L. Smith, J.D.
Dean of Libraries
University of Kansas

-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2017 10:37:28 +0100

I was waiting for Kevin to say something like this. He would be
failing in his duty if he did not do so.

The interesting thing about SciHub is that someone has shown that many
of the users have access to the articles they go to SciHib for. Why is
this? I would be interested in his views.

I would guess that more researchers have access to Elsevier toll
access articles than to the articles of any other publisher who uses
the subscription model. They certainly have more big deals and more
penetration that way than any other publisher.

Anthony

-----Original Message-----
From: "Smith, Kevin L" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 30 May 2017 13:04:33 +0000

It is a rather curious article, beginning with the very intimidating
language quoted, but going on to note that the founder of Sci-Hub
expects to continue to defy the U.S. court.  There is probably very
little that Elsevier can do to enforce a judgment it obtains, so any
award is likely to have only symbolic value.  Even the symbolism seems
likely to have only limited impact, since the grandiose language of
righteous indignation in Elsevier's motion is so common to them.  They
say things like "staggering" and "egregious" in every press release
they issue about alleged infringement and even about public access
proposals.  They cry wolf so often, in short, that even when that
language might be justified it is just too easy to dismiss.  And, of
course, there is the point made at the end of the article that
Elsevier has likely brought more attention to Sci-Hub than would have
been possible if they had simply ignored it.  I am sure the
decision-makers at Elsevier thought this would be their "Napster
moment," but the truth is that they pretty much made Sci-Hub what it
is, and now they are finding that they cannot put the genie back in
the bottle.

Kevin L. Smith, J.D.
Dean of Libraries
University of Kansas

-----Original Message-----
From: Ann Shumelda Okerson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 28 May 2017 09:24:47 -0400

Article we missed last week:

"'Pirate' sites Sci-Hub and LibGen face millions of dollars in damages
in a lawsuit filed by Elsevier, one of the largest academic
publishers. Elsevier has requested a default judgment of $15 million
against the defendants for their "truly egregious conduct" and
"staggering" infringement."

https://torrentfreak.com/elsevier-wants-15-million-piracy-damages-from-sci-hub-and-libgen-170518/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTWpOak1tWXhaRGhtTmpBNSIsInQiOiI3QzdyUW5nUlB0UzYrcTBQYzNMN2pKXC9pR3Vrc250VzRGaks4bHh6QWphZTV1STYybUE2Zm5DU0VOVnRMQktwZWNpb3RpamwyS1lRWnAzQVZ4cStHZnBwcWplK1lZRncxc2t2SWtCV3BDODNCVnE2RmhnNzd5SGk3aUF0TDhkY0UifQ%3D%3D