We traveled down to Eugene on Wednesday, May 18 to meet with representatives from Elsevier. We are collaboratively negotiating with librarians from the University of Oregon and Portland State. In our discussions prior to this meeting, we identified several shared values. These values align nicely with the values articulated in OSU Libraries’ negotiating principles.
SUSTAINABILITY
Our universities’ contributions to Elsevier’s product are ongoing and substantial. However, historical pricing models do not reflect: The academic labor of authors, reviewers and editors; The value of the APC’s paid by our authors; The increasing amount of open access content in Elsevier packages; or the fact that we continue to pay, year after year, for older materials that have depreciated in value. For each of our institutions, readership trends contradict any claim that the practice of adding titles we did not request adds value. We will prioritize agreements that provide fair and transparent pricing for the content our communities need.
ACCESS
As Oregon’s largest public research universities, our missions include service to the state of Oregon. We will prioritize investments that ensure broad access to the research we produce and to the resources we license.
SHARING AND USE
Inquiry depends on the right to use and share information. We are committed to agreements that uphold authors’ rights to use and share their own research, and to deposit articles in institutional repositories. We are committed to agreements that support our right to share resources with libraries, and that support efforts to build sustainable infrastructure to support sharing.
ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY
As public institutions with broad service missions, and as libraries acting on behalf of those institutions, we must be transparent and accountable to our communities. We will prioritize agreements that reflect this commitment. We are committed to a transparent negotiation, we will not sign non-disclosure agreements, and we will share details whenever possible to be accountable to our local and professional communities.
