Background Information on Science Direct Decision - Updated March 30, 2004

Macalester has decided to not participate in the new three year contract for access to Science Direct. Access to our subscriptions has ceased effective March 30. Our decision is based on the following key points:

1. Costs and budgetary limits - the single greatest factor for us is that in these tight times the inability to cancel titles prevents us from participating. Assuming that the inflation rate for Elsevier continues at no more than 7.5% per year, and the fact that there are now 60 titles we can't touch as opposed to 41 previously, we did a projection on how much of our budget would be committed to Elsevier and by the end of three years they would have approximately 21% of our periodicals budget dollars, and that would be only if our budget was static. However, we anticipate our budget may be cut this year, with one more possible cut the following year. We had to cut $30,000 in journals last year due to a cut in our budget. We anticipate some cuts in 2004-2005 and we just can't commit to the inflexibility of not cancelling any Elsevier titles.

2. Trends - Elsevier's title list grew by 69% between 2001 and 2004. Macalester's title commitment grew by 46%. Our financial commitment increased by 61%. If we continued in this deal, we felt we would be too severely limited in terms of what titles we would be able to select for cancellation purposes.

3. Comparison of previous 2001-2003 deal with 2004-2006 deal - the 2004 deal requires a higher level of commitment and access to fewer titles. Whereas the first deal was definitely a gain for us, we had to weigh the benefits of this new contract against the costs. If we had continued to have access to all the titles as opposed to only a select list, this may have made our decision much tougher.

4. Faculty input - we invited faculty members in the sciences divisions to a meeting on Monday, Nov. 10th. At that meeting, we shared the details of the contract and we presented three options including to stay as a participant within the deal, and we explained that by not participating we would not have electronic access to the Elsevier titles we purchased in print. It was a small group, but they were all in agreement, giving up electronic access and access to a significant number of journals that many of them used was a sacrifice that needed to be made and one that they supported. [Note: We will have access to an electronic version for the current year of titles we continue to subscribe to.]

Other Institutions: Carleton, Gustavus, and St. Olaf have all opted out of the new contract as well.

Our previous contract for Science Direct was a much better "deal" than the new contract. It was also an experiment in a new model for access to electronic journals. The decision to no longer participate in Science Direct is not an easy decision. There are many complexities to the new "deal" and we have tried to summarize these in the attached powerpoint. Many institutions have been struggling with this decision. There are also at least two publications available with information related to what other larger research institutions are considering in relation to the Elsevier/Science Direct issue. Cornell University Library has published a paper with some pertinent facts at http://www.library.cornell.edu/scholarlycomm/elsevier.html

A recent article by Richard Edwards and David Shulenburger outlines some key issues regarding the reasons scholarly journal prices have increased at an exceptionally high rat as well as providing some interesting thoughtful suggestions for "what do do about it". We have placed a copy of "The High Costs of Scholarly Journals", CHANGE, November/December 2003, p. 10-19 on Ereserve.

There have been several faculty resolutions at academic institutions related to the high costs of journals.

Stanford resolution http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/04/journals225.html

University of California Santa Cruz faculty senate http://senate.ucsc.edu/col/res.1405.pdf

A recent newsletter with additional information on variations large research institutions who are also making tough choices.

Another website for those interested in seeing more, http://stlq.info/, geared to librarians, there are many links to various reports, see reports dated November 17th related to Elsevier.

We had a very short deadline for this decision and we understand that many of you will have questions. Please contact Terri Fishel at x6343.

More Information - Current Trends, Critical Choices powerpoint presentation

Statistics

• Comparison data, original deal (Excel Spreadsheet)
• Regional use of Science Direct (Excel Spreadsheet)

If you want to read more about the Scholarly Publishing "crisis" - please see the web page http://www.arl.org/scomm/resources.html produced by the Association of Research Libraries.

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