Cornell axes Elsevier journals as prices rise

Knight, Nature 426, 217 (20 November 2003); doi:10.1038/426217a

A top US research university is set to cancel its subscriptions to several hundred scientific journals published by Elsevier in January, in response to spiralling subscription costs….

Netherlands-based Elsevier, which owns a quarter of the global market in scientific and technical journals, played down the importance of the move…

Profit-wise, it likely isn’t a big deal for them

Cornell’s deal with Elsevier, now priced at $1.7 million, consumes a fifth of the university’s total periodical budget. When the library tried to cancel individual Elsevier titles, university officials say, the prices of the remaining titles increased significantly, offsetting any savings. “To save a little, you have to cancel a lot,” says Cornell’s associate collections librarian, Ross Atkinson. Cornell will now return to a title-by-title plan with a vastly reduced number of journals, he says…

Cancellations by other universities are also likely, says Duane Webster, director of the Association of Research Libraries in Washington DC. “Cornell is just the first,” he says.

Among those still negotiating is Harvard University, which is unlikely to renew its deal with Elsevier, according to library director Sidney Verba. He says that the price rises will probably result in a large reduction in Elsevier subscriptions…

The pleas of librarians about increasing journal prices has fallen on deaf ears for some time. The publishers, such as Elsevier have long had the “upper hand” in negotiations because of the libraries’ need to provide material for their patrons. However, the breaking point was bound to come and it looks like it’s almost here.