Next move in Dutch Elsevier boycott
04 July 2015 - The War on Elsevier
As reported earlier here in the beginning of the year, the Dutch universities have started a war on publisher Elsevier demanding a better deal for their journal subscription preferably open-access. This war has now entered stage two: all university personnel is kindly requested to abandon their second jobs at Elsevier (source NRC). Currently 46 such people moonlight as chief-editor at an Elsevier publication and another 835 hold regular editor positions. Key in the contract dispute are the fees that universities pay Elsevier for open-access publications even when the universities already pay a regular subscription. That does not sound fair. Elsevier in the meanwhile complains that a transition to the proposed new model will take millions of euros in investments and that national governments should fund them. Apparently it was possible to fool the UK government in supplying this money but so far the Dutch counterpart is not convinced Elsevier has a case. To be continued!