[pp.int.general] Harvard University recomments its faculty to go open access

[Daniel Riaño]

>From the memo:

We write to communicate an untenable situation facing the Harvard Library.
> 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.
>
> Harvard’s annual cost for journals from these providers now approaches
> $3.75M. In 2010, the comparable amount accounted for more than 20% of *all
> * periodical subscription costs and just under 10% of *all* collection
> costs for everything the Library acquires. Some journals cost as much as
> $40,000 per year, others in the tens of thousands. Prices for online
> content from two providers have increased by about 145% over the past six
> years, which far exceeds not only the consumer price index, but also the
> higher education and the library price indices. These journals therefore
> claim an ever-increasing share of our overall collection budget. Even
> though scholarly output continues to grow and publishing can be expensive,
> profit margins of 35% and more suggest that the prices we must pay do not
> solely result from an increasing supply of new articles.
>

http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k77982&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup143448

This could be the start of something huge in the academic world.

One of the "two providers" is almost certainly Elsevier (my own university
spends more than 1 million € each year in this provider alone, and this
amount doesn't cover the full subscription, neither the full services
provided). Which are the candidates for the other?
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