Researchers boycott Elsevier

Chronicle of Higher Education : The latest development in the controversy concerning open access to scholarly research is the boycott of Elsevier, the world’s largest scientific journal publisher. By Tuesday evening about 2400 scientists had signed an online pledge not to publish or do any editorial work for the company’s journals, writes Josh Fischman for the Chronicle of Higher Education. It began with an irate blog post on 21 January by Timothy Gowers, a mathematician at the University of Cambridge. The boycotters claim that Elsevier charges too much for journal content, that its bundling of subscriptions forces libraries to pay for journals they don’t want in order to get the ones they do, and that the company is a strong supporter of the Research Works Act . Representatives of Elsevier counter that the company offers a variety of packages and pricing schemes and is willing to negotiate discounts. They also emphasize that the company invests in infrastructure, pays editors, and identifies peer reviewers.