Letter to UM Faculty from Provost Destler Regarding 2004 Elsevier Subscription (02.20.2004)

As many of you are aware, the University of Maryland has recently had to make significant changes to its agreement providing access to Elsevier journals. The two major changes are: the loss of consortial access for titles subscribed to by the University of Maryland, Baltimore; and the movement of all University of Maryland, College Park, subscriptions to electronic-only access. These changes follow months of unsuccessful negotiations with Reed Elsevier by the University Libraries. I recognize that these changes will create some inconvenience for faculty members and students, however, the negotiation position adopted by Reed Elsevier left no other option.

Many of you have expressed your support for the Libraries’ efforts tocreate a successful relationship with this publisher, and I would like to offer my perspective on this decision.

The Libraries have articulated two objectives in working with publishers:

1. to maintain and exercise control over library collecting decisions in order to meet the constantly evolving information needs of faculty, researchers, and students; and
2. to manage overall costs in a way that guarantees that no single publisher is exempted from the regular critical review, which ensures that all subscriptions provide reasonable value in relation to their budget impact.

Elsevier’s final offer for continued consortial access (which would have allowed continuing access to the titles to which the University of Maryland, Baltimore subscribes) failed to meet either criterion.

Elsevier journals accounted for approximately 30% of the Libraries’print journal expenditures last year while accounting for only 10% of the titles in the collection. Payments for Elsevier print journals amounted to more than $1,000,000 in 2003. In addition, the Libraries made an additional $100,000 in payments for electronic access. The Libraries’ collection review at the beginning of this year, with the direct involvement of faculty, identified titles published by Elsevier and many other publishers as appropriate for cancellation. However, to make these or any future cancellations, the Libraries had to give up access to shared collections. By retaining the ability to cancel titles, the Libraries maintain the option of building collections with other publishers’ titles where they provide greater value to the campus community.

In addition to retaining the freedom to manage our collections andexpenditures, the Libraries have also recognized that it is necessary to offset the rapid increase in Elsevier subscription prices with the modest savings the publisher offers to institutions converting to electronic-only subscriptions. From 2002 to 2003, the price of the Libraries’ Elsevier titles inflated just slightly less than 10%. Elsevier offered a one-time 10% savings to move collections to e-only access. This is not a decision the Libraries took lightly. The Libraries considered many factors including our past history with Elsevier electronic journals, the publisher’s policies on archiving of their e-journals, the licensing arrangements offered, and faculty opinion.

The University of Maryland has some distinguished company in its decision to reject the no-cancellation model of consortial access. Cornell, Harvard, MIT, and the Triangle Research Libraries Network (Duke University, the University of North Carolina, and North Carolina State) have recently made the decision to retain the freedom to manage their own collections of Elsevier titles.

The challenges the University of Maryland and other research libraries face in negotiations with Elsevier are only symptoms of a much larger problem in the system of scholarly communication. While some commercial publishers of science and technical journals have reported profits on the order of 40% and enjoyed enviable assessments by market analysts, the scholarly community has found itself increasingly unable to afford the broad distribution and deep collections required by the research enterprise. The Association of Research Libraries has documented that over the past fifteen years even the largest research libraries have increased serial spending by 227% but have been able to afford to subscribe to fewer titles now than in 1986. Our faculty typically give their intellectual property to publishers that frequently offer a shrinking subscription base. In some cases, their own institutions cannot afford the journals they are supporting with their unpaid labor as editors and reviewers.

The University of Maryland is working with other research universities to address this crisis. One example of this type of work is the Libraries’ participation in the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. This initiative of the Association of Research Libraries seeks to increase broad and cost-effective access to peer-reviewed scholarship. The Libraries are also active with the International Consortium of Library Consortia, an international group that works with publishers of electronic resources. These activities require the support of the campus as typically only the cancellation of low value products successfully signals to publishers that we are serious in our demands for reasonable pricing for scholarly communication.

I firmly believe that universities must address this crisis in the system of scholarly communication. Our libraries need our support in their work with the university community to regain control of their budgets, their collections, and the intellectual property that is the ultimate output of the research enterprise. I encourage you to continue to engage in discussions with our library faculty about what we are doing to explore new models of scholarly communication and restore a measure of rationality to the publishing system. It is important to extend the discussion beyond our campus as well, especially for those of you who serve on editorial boards of journals published commercially or by learned societies.

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