Another One Bites the Dust: Florida State University backs away from “Big Deal” subscription packages
Florida State University’s libraries are in negotiations with Elsevier about an impending pricing issue, according to Diana Kwon writing in the Scientist this week. Back in April, the libraries announced that, due to the “high… Read more »
Meet the world’s foremost pirate of academic research
The biggest game in town for pirated research and academic papers is Sci-Hub. If you want to download an academic paper without having to pay for it, this is the best,… Read more »
Egyptian government launches the world’s largest digital library
Last November the Egyptian government announced that it would soon launch the world’s largest digital library, the Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB), and according to Good e-Reader’s Michael Kozlowski, on January… Read more »
Entire staff of Elsevier journal quits in protest of over-pricing
Last week, the editorial staff of the linguistics journal Lingua announced their decision to resign en masse in an act of protest against their publisher Elsevier. Following Elsevier’s refusal to… Read more »
Netherland-based publisher Swets is filing for bankrupcy
German trade magazine Börsenblatt reports that Swets, a publishing company based in Leiden that provides 35,000 subscription services to universities and libraries, will be filing for bankruptcy. As much as… Read more »
The numbers they didn’t want you to see: study finds that academic publishers basically charge whatever they feel like
It’s been understood for quite a while now that the prices big academic publishers charge universities and libraries for access to academic journals bear little to no relationship to the… Read more »
Report that criticizes major academic publishers is censored, and you’ll never guess by who
Taylor & Francis, a major academic publisher, is facing controversy over their censorship of a series of papers on academic publishing that appeared in the journal Prometheus: Critical Studies in… Read more »
Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University speaks out on Elsevier and Open Access
One of the most significant indications that academic publishing is a broken system is the fact that, periodically, major institutions and academics—secure and well-funded and with nothing in particular to… Read more »
Elsevier loves Open Access, especially when they can still charge for articles
Academic publisher Elsevier, whose various malfeasances we’ve covered here, here, and here, is at it again. It turns out that they’ve been charging for access to Open Access articles. Furthermore,… Read more »
Elsevier issues academics thousands of takedown notices, doesn’t want any friends anyway
With all the delicacy and tact of Rob Ford at a press conference, the academic publisher Elsevier has stepped up their attempts to control the circulation of journal articles, sending… Read more »