Through a SUNY license, Hudson Valley has access to the Elsevier ScienceDirect journal collection. All campuses have access to nearly 2,500 peer-reviewed journals in the Elsevier “Big Deal” (which refers to access to the entire Elsevier title list). Elsevier structures its contracts so that the Big Deal is the only feasible manner in which libraries can access more than a small number of titles. The cost to the SUNY system is very high: more than $9.5 Million, which is shared between campuses. For some campuses, the cost for the Elsevier journal collection alone is more than 25% of the library’s journal budget. Hudson Valley benefits from a campus cost distribution model that is very favorable to community colleges.
Faculty may have recently read that the University of California system as well as a number of European systems have opted to walk away from their Elsevier contracts. The reasons include Elsevier’s continued reliance on outdated pricing models and the lack of response to open access publishing paradigms. Walking away has serious implications for the university systems, primarily the disruption in access to scholarly journal content. However, the systems, led by their libraries and supported by their faculty, took these drastic steps to make bold statements to Elsevier that their business practices are no longer sustainable. Elsevier currently reaps billions of dollars in annual profits from its journal sales.
The SUNY Libraries Consortium is currently in negotiations with Elsevier on the renewal of its contract which expires at the end of this calendar year. The team is negotiating in good faith with Elsevier and is stressing the need to review the financial model on which the pricing is based, as well as the rapidly-developing, transformative open access publishing environment. The team is also starting to consider contingency plans should negotiations fail and the contract end.
At Dwight Marvin Library, we are also planning for scenarios that include continued access with a higher annual subscription fee, limited access or cancellation of access. The list of Hudson Valley’s most-used journals from the Elsevier collection is provided below. Note that most journal use is in social sciences, as well as health sciences and technologies. Faculty and others are welcome to contact me with comments or concerns about the negotiations and access to this content. As negotiations continue, I will apprise the campus of major developments. The negotiations team is conducting town hall meetings for faculty at larger campuses; if you would like more information about the town halls, please contact me (b.hazard@hvcc.edu).
Brenda Hazard
Library Director
SUNY Libraries Consortium ScienceDirect Negotiations Team/
representative for community colleges
30 Most Used Journals from Elsevier ScienceDirect Collection by HVCC
January 2017 – present:
Computers in Human Behavior (most full-text downloads: 1,742)
Personality and Individual Differences
Journal of Affective Disorders
Child Abuse & Neglect
Addictive Behaviors
Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences
Journal of Criminal Justice
Child and Youth Services Review
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Psychiatry Research
Social Science & Medicine
Icarus [solar energy/technology]
Aggression and Violent Behavior
Drug and Alcohol Dependence
Psychology of Sport and Exercise
Journal of Adolescence
Research in Developmental Disabilities
Computers & Education
Body Image
Cretaceous Research
Appetite
Science of the Total Environment
Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Economics of Education Review
Preventive Medicine
The Lancet
Journal of Adolescent Health
Published: Fri, 26 Apr 2019 12:18:32 +0000 by b.hazard