From: "Lowe, Chrysanne (ELS-SDG)" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:46:43 +0000 On behalf of Elsevier, I am writing to let the library community know that in consideration of feedback from our customers, Elsevier has decided to withdraw its support for the Research Works Act. The official statement on Elsevier.com is reposted here as follows: Elsevier withdraws support for Research Works Act At Elsevier, we have always focused on serving the global research community and ensuring the best possible access to research publications and data. In recent weeks, our support for the Research Works Act has caused some in the community to question that commitment. We have heard expressions of support from publishers and scholarly societies for the principle behind the legislation. However, we have also heard from some Elsevier journal authors, editors and reviewers who were concerned that the Act seemed inconsistent with Elsevier’s long-standing support for expanding options for free and low-cost public access to scholarly literature. That was certainly not our intention in supporting it. This perception runs counter to our commitment to making published research widely accessible, coming at a time when we continue to expand our access options for authors and develop advanced technologies to enable the sharing and distribution of research results. We welcome indications that key research funders are more willing to talk to publishers to explore collaborative approaches. This is a good sign because we firmly believe that more cooperation and partnership between funders and publishers is the best way to expand free public access. While we continue to oppose government mandates in this area, Elsevier is withdrawing support for the Research Work Act itself. We hope this will address some of the concerns expressed and help create a less heated and more productive climate for our ongoing discussions with research funders. Cooperation and collaboration are critical because different kinds of journals in different fields have different economics and models. Inflexible mandates that do not take those differences into account and do not involve the publisher in decision making can undermine the peer-reviewed journals that serve an essential purpose in the research community. Therefore, while withdrawing support for the Research Works Act, we will continue to join with those many other nonprofit and commercial publishers and scholarly societies that oppose repeated efforts to extend mandates through legislation. We are ready and willing to work constructively and cooperatively to continue to promote free and low-cost public access through a variety of means, as we have with research funders and other partners around the world. Publication date: 27 February 2012 ___________________________________________________________________________ We recognize that the recent legislative debate is far from the only issue at hand. We acknowledge that, as the largest of the commercial publishers, we take a sizable share of your serials budget. However, relative to our competitors, we are also confident that we deliver a significant share of value in terms of articles, usage, citations, and improved research productivity. (Note a related study on research output by the Research Information Network (RIN) http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/e-journals-their-use-value-and-impact.) Since the transition from print to electronic dissemination, Elsevier has worked with libraries to develop business models that reflect the varied information needs of individual institutions and the value delivered. While some librarians ask for pay-per-view, numerous librarians argue for the “big deal”. Towards these multiple ends, we have evolved to offer a broad menu of purchasing options: from article level pay-per-view, title-by-title purchases, subjection collections to the Freedom Collection. These many choices are described on our website at: http://www.info.sciverse.com/sciencedirect/buying/primary_license_options Additionally, we have an increasing and evolving number of open access choices available to our authors described at: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/intro.cws_home/open_access We have been on a long path of change and we will not rest. We will continue to work with you and our authors to steadily evolve pricing and business models, not towards a single model, but towards increasingly diverse options; always focused on how we can demonstrate and increase our value. We wish to thank the library community in particular, for engaging in the recent debate with thoughtful and respectful dialog. We have welcomed your comments, counsel and constructive criticism both in public and in private forums. With the library community, we continue to achieve better outcomes for scholarly communications. Chrysanne Lowe Vice President Marketing Communications