The UCs are “Championing Change in Journal Negotiations”

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Major journal negotiations are slated for 2019 and the UC system is entering these negotiations guided by the principles and goals outlined in the “Call to Action.”

The goal of The Call is to responsibly transition funding for journal subscriptions toward funding for open dissemination. In coming months, it is important to have productive conversations and gather input from UC faculty, students, and researchers.

The Call to Action is now live on the University of California’s Systemwide Library and Scholarly Information Advisory Committee (SLASIAC) site. Ivy Anderson, the Director of Collection Development and Management Program at the California Digital Library (CDL), puts The Call into context in her enlightening blog post “Championing Change in Journal Negotiations.”

It has become increasingly clear that the problem of rising journal costs in the context of a widespread movement toward open access can only be addressed by tackling the subscription system itself.

Many peer institutions and consortia in Europe and elsewhere are actively pursuing this goal by committing to a transition to immediate open access publication as an alternative to subscriptions.  From the global OA2020 initiative with more than 100 signatories in 35 countries, to Projekt DEAL in Germany, and “No Deal No Review” in Finland, a global movement is gathering to address the unsustainability and restrictive nature of subscription-based journal publication by withdrawing library support for subscriptions and redirecting financial investments toward sustainable open access.

In support of the UCs’ distinctive mission to serve society and translate research into knowledge and innovations that positively impact California, the nation, and the world, stakeholders in new knowledge production are invited to weigh in on this initiative to change the course of the scholarly communication system to better serve the users and creators of scholarship and research.

 SLASIAC, UCOLASC, and the UC Council of University Librarians seek to engage the entire UC academic community, and indeed all stakeholders in the scholarly communication enterprise, in this journey of transformation.

We look forward to continuing to discuss these ideas with UC faculty, students, and researchers in the months ahead. We also hope that this call will promote further dialogue within the broader academic and scholarly publishing communities about how we can work together in partnership to achieve a more sustainable, inclusive, and open scholarly communication system that increases the positive impact of valuable research information throughout the world.

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