Four Minnesota private colleges do not renew ScienceDirect

[ktezla@carleton.edu]

Four Minnesota private colleges (Carleton, Gustavus Adolphus, Macalester,
and St. Olaf) have independently decided to decline a three year renewal
of Science Direct through our regional cooperative, MINITEX.  Through a
MINITEX subsidy of this e-journal bundle our schools enjoyed access to
full text of over 700 e-journals for the past three years, but find we
cannot justify renewal of this deal for another three years.

While the reasons and decision processes were somewhat different on each
campus, we are all convinced that the escalating prices for many
scientific journals are unsustainable and that the time has come for
change.  (It is not just Reed-Elsevier's Science Direct package that
employs an unsustainable pricing model.) For each of us the
disproportionate amount spent for a small percentage of scientific
journals was negatively affecting our ability to build a balanced liberal
arts college collection. We are moving to reduce the disproportionate
impact on our budgets of a few large commercial publishers.  In declining
the Science Direct offer we have elected to retain the ability to cancel
high price/low value journals in favor of titles that offer greater value
and promote business models consistent with the interests of our
institutions.

Our faculties are aware that this decision will result in a painful
reduction in a overall journal access in the short term.  But they are
supporting us because they understand that it is in the long term
interests of our institutions to reassert control over our collections and
to encourage new, more sustainable publishing models. Scientists now
recognize that this is not a "library problem", but a broader crisis in
scholarly communication.  Open access journals are a clear alternative to
the unsustainable bundling of journals, which prohibits cancellations and
which consistently increase at rates of 5-8% per year.

We are working with other colleges and universities to address this crisis
by supporting the work of SPARC (insert link), Public Library of Science
(insert link), and other groups that seek to increase broad and
cost-effective access to peer reviewed scholarship.  In declining the
Science Direct offer we are joining an increasing number of institutions
(insert link) signaling that we are serious in our demands for reasonable
pricing for scholarly communication.

In addition, on each campus we are beginning to increase outreach efforts
to encourage our administrations and faculties to engage in discussions
related to scholarly communication, and to evaluate publishing
alternatives, including the open access model.  Specifically, we are
encouraging our college communities to consider:

-avoiding publishing and reviewing for journals that are not moving
 towards an open access model,
-retaining the right to distribute the results of their research broadly,
-establishing institutional archives,
-engaging in conversation about open access within departments,
 campus-wide, with legislators and policy-makers, and in their scholarly 
 and scientific societies, and
-adopting policies that signal that publication in quality open access
 journals is acceptable in the institutions' system of rewards and
 recognition.

Sam Demas, Carleton College
Terri Fishel, Macalester College
Bryn Geffert, St. Olaf College
Dan Mollner, Gustavus Adolphus College

May 2004

Kathy E. Tezla, Head                             email: ktezla@carleton.edu
Collection Development                           voice: (507)646-5447
Carleton College                                 fax: (507)646-4087
Laurence McKinley Gould Library
One North College Street
Northfield, MN 55057
www.library.carleton.edu