From: Kathleen Shearer <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 12:43:25 -0400

Please excuse the cross posting.

For Immediate Release
Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Contact:
Ranit Schmelzer (SPARC)
202-538-1065
[log in to unmask]

Katharina Müller (COAR)
49 551 39-22215
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NEW POLICY FROM ELSEVIER IMPEDES OPEN ACCESS AND SHARING

Global coalition of organizations denounce the policy and urge
Elsevier to revise it

Washington, DC and Göttingen, Germany – Elsevier’s new sharing and
hosting policy represents a significant obstacle to the dissemination
and use of research knowledge, and creates unnecessary barriers for
Elsevier published authors in complying with funders’ open access
policies, according to an analysis by the Scholarly Publishing and
Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) and the Confederation of Open
Access Repositories (COAR).

“Elsevier’s policy is in direct conflict with the global trend towards
open access and serves only to dilute the benefits of openly sharing
research results,” said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC
and Kathleen Shearer, Executive Director of COAR, in a joint
statement. “Elsevier claims that the policy advances sharing but in
fact, it does the opposite. We strongly urge Elsevier to revise it.”

The new stance marks a significant departure from Elsevier’s initial
policy, established in 2004, which allowed authors to self-archive
their final accepted manuscripts of peer-reviewed articles in
institutional repositories without delay.  While the stated purpose of
the new revision is, in part, to roll back an ill-conceived 2012
amendment prohibiting authors at institutions that have adopted
campus-wide Open Access policies from immediate self archiving, the
net result of the new policy is that Elsevier has placed greater
restrictions on sharing articles.

Twenty-three groups today released the following statement in
opposition to the policy:

“On April 30, 2015, Elsevier announced a new sharing and hosting
policy for Elsevier journal articles. This policy represents a
significant obstacle to the dissemination and use of research
knowledge, and creates unnecessary barriers for Elsevier published
authors in complying with funders’ open access policies. In addition,
the policy has been adopted without any evidence that immediate
sharing of articles has a negative impact on publishers’
subscriptions.

“Despite the claim by Elsevier that the policy advances sharing, it
actually does the opposite. The policy imposes unacceptably long
embargo periods of up to 48 months for some journals. It also requires
authors to apply a "non-commercial and no derivative works" license
for each article deposited into a repository, greatly inhibiting the
re-use value of these articles. Any delay in the open availability of
research articles curtails scientific progress and places unnecessary
constraints on delivering the benefits of research back to the public.

“Furthermore, the policy applies to "all articles previously published
and those published in the future" making it even more punitive for
both authors and institutions. This may also lead to articles that are
currently available being suddenly embargoed and inaccessible to
readers.

“As organizations committed to the principle that access to
information advances discovery, accelerates innovation and improves
education, we support the adoption of policies and practices that
enable the immediate, barrier free access to and reuse of scholarly
articles. This policy is in direct conflict with the global trend
towards open access and serves only to dilute the benefits of openly
sharing research results.

“We strongly urge Elsevier to reconsider this policy and we encourage
other organizations and individuals to express their opinions.”

The statement is available here and we welcome others to show their
support by also endorsing it.

The statement has been signed by the following groups:

COAR: Confederation of Open Access Repositories
SPARC: Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition
ACRL: Association of College and Research Libraries
ALA: American Library Association
ARL: Association of Research Libraries
Association of Southeastern Research Libraries
Australian Open Access Support Group
IBICT: Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology
CARL: Canadian Association of Research Libraries
CLACSO: Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales
COAPI: Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (USA)
EIFL
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Greater Western Library Alliance
LIBER: European Research Library Association
National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences
OpenAIRE
Open Data Hong Kong
Research Libraries UK
SANLiC: South African National Licensing Consortium
University of St Andrews Library


SPARC®, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, is
an international alliance of academic and research libraries working
to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system. Developed by
the Association of Research Libraries, SPARC has become a catalyst for
change. Its pragmatic focus is to stimulate the emergence of new
scholarly communication models that expand the dissemination of
scholarly research and reduce financial pressures on libraries. More
information can be found at:  http://www.sparc.arl.org.

COAR, the Confederation of Open Access Repositories, is an
international association with over 100 members and partners from five
continents representing universities, research institutions,
government research funders, and others. COAR’s mission is to enhance
the visibility and application of research outputs through a global
network of Open Access digital repositories. COAR brings together the
major repository initiatives in order to align policies and practices
and acts as a global voice for the repository community.