Let's Work Together to Fix Academic Journals

Ron Hardy sent along this open letter about the price-gouging practices of large academic journal publishing. The statistics in the letter lay bare the policy of exploiting the necessity of university libraries to subscribe to key journals whatever the cost.

As a community, we should join this movement, and get journal prices under control. Perhaps the faculty senate should get involved and support a broad initiative!

Consider this:

An Open Letter to All University Presidents and Provosts Concerning Increasingly Expensive Journals:

http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~mcafee/Journal/OpenLetter.pdf

"It is time to recognize a simple fact, and react to it. The symbiotic relationship between academics and for-profit publishers has broken down. The large for-profit publishers are gouging the academic community for as much as the market will bear. Moreover, they will not stop pricing journals at the monopoly level, because shareholders demand it."

"So far, universities have failed to use one of the most powerful tools that they possess: charging for their valuable inputs. Journal editing uses a great deal of pro

fessorial and staff time, as well as supplies, office space and computers, all provided by universities... we see no reason for universities to subsidize editorial inputs to journals that are priced to extract maximum revenue from the academic community."

Will UW-Oshkosh accept this challenge? Will the library, with University Endorsement, consider cancelling academic journals that, based on measurable data, are gouging the very institutions that produce the content they sell?


Ronald Kane Hardy
Head of Information Resources
Polk Library, University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh
Oshkosh, WI 54901
hardyr@uwosh.edu
920-424-2097

The letter authors also link their analysis of cost for 5000 journals