Saying Costly Subscriptions ‘Cannot Be Sustained,’ Harvard Library Committee Urges Open Access – The Ticker – The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout
In an open letter to the Faculty, Harvard Faculty Advisory Council warn that:
Many large journal publishers have made the scholarly communication environment fiscally unsustainable and academically restrictive. This situation is exacerbated by efforts of certain publishers (called “providers”) to acquire, bundle, and increase the pricing on journals.
To deal with situation the advisory council recommends that faculty:
- Use DASH Harvard’s own open access repository.
- Move prestige to open access by using open access journals.
- Apply pressure to existing journals to move to open access or reasonable alternatives.
- Encourage debate and discussion on the open access topic.
If Harvard, one of the worlds most financially secure Universities, can no longer afford to pay the excessive subscription fees to publishers then how can all other Universities afford to do the same? Perhaps with Harvard’s leadership in this area we may see some changes.
