
Cancellation of subscriptions to Springer journals - semi-extrinsic
http://www.bib.umontreal.ca/communiques/20160506-DC-annulation-springer-va.htm
======
jo909
"UdeM Libraries will renew access to 150 of the 2,266 journals included in
this collection. The price we will pay for these individual subscriptions in
2016 is the same we were willing to pay for the entire collection."

So Springer still gets all the moneys they could have gotten anyway.

I totally understand why the library has to make such a compromise, but that's
not a very strong bargaining position.

~~~
aexaey
And it sounds like UdeM is not exactly pleased with Springer's pricing
practices - added emphasis in []:

    
    
        “We are trying to best meet the needs of our community
        despite budget cuts in the last few years, the
        [greediness of commercial publishers], and the weak
        Canadian dollar,” said Stéphanie Gagnon, Collections
        Director.

------
Overtonwindow
I wish universities would take the lead in forcing open the journal monopoly.
It would be really great if a major university like Stanford or Harvard said
to its professors: You may publish anywhere, but you must also publish it for
free to the academic community. Until a major university or five takes a stand
on this, the rest of us must continue to fight.

~~~
JW_00000
> You may publish anywhere, but you must also publish it for free to the
> academic community.

Is this possible? When publishing in a journal, I think you transfer your
copyright to them; thereby preventing you from publishing the article any
other way.

Although as far as I know many journals allow a "pre-print version" to be
published by the authors on their personal website.

~~~
arcanus
> When publishing in a journal, I think you transfer your copyright to them

That is correct. I have done this for every publication I've ever put out
(O(10)). There may be exceptions but this is certainly the dominant paradigm
in the physical sciences.

My two cents: this is bigger than any University. It will require a government
funding agency (likely, NIH or NSF) to take a stand vis a vi the public
availability of research produced by public funding.

~~~
mnw21cam
Since a few years ago, any EU or UK public funded research (which is most
university research) must be published as open-access. It is a requirement of
the funding. So this is already happening. However, it will need to be done by
a greater proportion of the world to be effective.

The only problem is that the method of open access publishing is usually to
pay a few grand to the publisher for the privilege.

~~~
return0
That can be a lot of money. E.g. elsevier charges $5000 / article :
[http://www.cell.com/rights-sharing-embargoes](http://www.cell.com/rights-
sharing-embargoes)

And that is money that should be going to research.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
I completely agree. I've said it before, pay-for open access (aka. "gold open
access") needs to go die in a fire.

------
chris_wot
I think forbidding professors and staff to participate in reviews and
volunteer work for commercial publishers whilst on University time, or say
that it is a conflict of interest which compromises their ethical duties to
the University, would make Spring and Elsevier suddenly realise that there
entire model is in jeopardy.

It would be hilarious (at least to me!) if all Universities suddenly did this
due to the outrageous pricing. Or, and this would be an interesting turn of
events, they demand that they be paid for supplying free labour. They could
use that payment to purchase access to the journals.

It's time for commercial publishers to realise that they are getting a free
ride, and that the free ride is ending. They might complain, but the only ones
who they will be able to blame are themselves for their predicament.

~~~
mbreese
Many journals offer an open-access option for publishing. However, this is
chosen after the article has been reviewed and accepted. So, currently there
isn't always a way (for a reviewer) to know if an article will be published
open access or not.

Edit: added "for a reviewer"

~~~
simula67
Not for Springer though, right ? From Springer FAQ (
[http://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/authors-rights/faq-
ab...](http://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/authors-rights/faq-about-
authors-rights/2114) )

"I don’t want to transfer my copyright. What should I do?

You can choose to publish your article open access in Springer’s Open Choice
program or one of our SpringerOpen journals. Publishing an article with open
access leaves the copyright with the author. The article is published under
the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY), which allows users to read,
copy, distribute and make derivative works from the material, as long as the
author of the original work is cited"

~~~
mbreese
But the reviewers have no knowledge of this choice (nor should they really).

The parent was suggesting that Universities bar their faculty from reviewing
papers unless it was an open-access publisher. I haven't published in a
Springer journal, but others have the authors make the open-access
determination only after the paper was accepted. In which case, the
_reviewers_ would have no idea about if they were reviewing an open-access
paper or not.

------
matt_morgan
Librarian fight!

" ... UdeM professors and researchers that are concerned about these changes
are well positioned to make a difference. They can, for instance, express
their disapproval (see Springer contacts for UdeM below), refuse to review
articles, or support open access publishing. The greatest risk for publishers
is that people start questioning their access to this free research output and
volunteer workforce as well as their business model."

~~~
chris_wot
The only sort of fighting I really can get behind, to be honest.

------
Jerry2
University of Montreal should provide a link to Sci-Hub on their main library
search page. Their students would appreciate it.

~~~
pessimizer
Or just have a lecture about it in every required freshman ethics course,
which would have the same effect.

------
mizzao
The journal publishing model may have made sense before the Internet became
widespread, but now it's just a business that allows a few publishers to make
bank from academics who are both doing the work (writing papers) and curating
the content (peer review), all for _free_!

~~~
rewrew
So the peer reviewers usually aren't paid? I thought many were.

~~~
mizzao
Nope, we get sent papers to review and are expected to read and send a report
of them without compensation, as part of our scientific responsibility.

There have been attempts to speed up publication by offering cash bonuses
($20-$50) if you return your review in a timely fashion (as you can imagine
some reviews take a really long time since there is no hard incentive to do
it) but these amounts still pale in comparison to the several hours or more
that you are asking of an expert's time.

------
scalio
> “We are trying to best meet the needs of our community despite budget cuts
> in the last few years, the greediness of commercial publishers, and the weak
> Canadian dollar,"

Money's short, thus expenses have to be cut somewhere. Very understandable.

> UdeM Libraries will renew access to 150 of the 2,266 journals included in
> this collection. __The price we will pay __for these individual
> subscriptions in 2016 __is the same we __were willing to __pay for the
> entire collection __.

So... you _save literally zero_ zilch nichts, except you now hold 85% less
things. In other words, this whole action is meaningless.

Also,

> A survey conducted recently with the university community established that
> only 256 titles (or 11.6%) within the Springer collection are needed for
> research and teaching at UdeM.

That rubs me in a wrong way, you don't know wether you can use a paper for
your own research or teaching until you've read it, meaning until your _need_
for it has been satisfied. (edit) Lucky stumbles do happen, and I generally
don't like the idea of scaling a scientific library down. Strictly speaking,
UdeM's library actually continues to grow, only at 15% of the previous rate,
since old issues aren't being thrown out. But we seem fine relying on
(economic) growth as an accurate measure of well-being, so why not apply it
here? Then remember the non-existant economic advantage (which should be
around an 85% payment cut), and the whole thing stops making any sense.

Depending on which and how many branches a university has, 256 journals can
mean a whole lot or ridiculously little literature about each subject. I don't
know UdeM, so I can't judge them.

Add the little sentence

> Springer’s articles end up being 225% more expensive at UdeM compared to
> Elsevier’s.

and this whole move starts stinking like there's no tomorrow.

(edit) That last sentence may be a bit harsh, but I do believe this should not
be taken at face value (something's missing).

(rewordings)

------
lvs
Why not just fully automate the interlibrary loan system to eliminate human
intervention? Have it accept a DOI, return the PDF, and automatically fill out
any backend paperwork.

------
Pxtl
I wonder how much this has to do with the francophonic Quebec culture.
Montreal has two big universities, McGill and UdM. McGill is primarily
English-speaking, while UdM is primarily French-speaking. French Canada has
always been far more politically activist than English Canada - they shift
paradigms without a clutch.

~~~
DonPellegrino
You're confusing UdeM with UQAM. UdeM is the more prestigious one by far, but
it's also smaller than UQAM. There's at least 6 universities in Montreal, it's
easy for outsiders to get lost.

~~~
1bm
Actually, UQAM trails UdeM in both enrolment, staff and research budget

------
RRRA
University have to start mandating that their teacher's research be deposited
as OA first, locally, before anything else happen. Teachers' evaluation should
be judged based on what is found locally.

------
mankash666
While price gouging by monopolistic publishers is certainly unpleasant, the
very same universities complaining about the issue raise tuition and fees
disproportionately.

Save a few public universities, the Canadian and American universities operate
just like the publishers they complain about.

~~~
mizzao
As opposed to the many private institutions in the US, Canadian universities
are all publicly funded and tuition costs a few thousand dollars at the most.

~~~
vonmoltke
Where was mankash666 talking about private universities?

------
aminorex
Elsevier...you are next.

~~~
libraxxx
Oh yes, I really wished it were true.

We're working in a small satellite institute, and we don't have direct access
to an university-level subscription.

There are _some_ (single) journals we subscribe to, but for most of the
articles we have no other option than to pay _per-article_. Doing background
research this way is incredibly frustrating, incredibly time-consuming and you
have to decide whether a paper is worth investing to just by looking at the
abstract. Doing a literature review is hell.

So what we do, like everybody does, is to ask the authors privately, and copy
articles whenever we can. Or ask colleagues that have access through an
university subscription.

I actually don't mind for the "pay for open-access" model. On all the articles
we published, we always picked this option if available. In the scheme of
things, the cost of publishing is minor. In several fields (genetics), it's
not even a blip on the running costs of a lab. I don't mind paying for
journals that actually do a reasonable selection and review on the articles.
Some journals _are_ worth the cost of publishing.

Unfortunately, this is not as widespread as it should. Keep copying guys...
nothing new here.

