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Libraries ‘will ditch publishers who don’t give Covid discounts’

Price freezes for journal packages ‘not enough’ to meet cuts UK universities need to make

Academic libraries in the UK have called for “immediate reductions” in prices if they are to keep subscribing to the packages of journals offered by major publishers.

The demand was issued on 13 August jointly by the higher education IT agency Jisc, which negotiates major deals on behalf of libraries, Research Libraries UK (RLUK), and the Society of College, National and University Libraries (Sconul).

“Publishers should be focusing on supporting research by reducing journal costs not on maintaining profit levels,” said Stella Butler, University of Leeds’ librarian in a statement released by the three bodies. “If prices do not come down, cancellations are inevitable.”

The strong statement follows last month’s call by the vice-chancellors’ group Universities  UK and Jisc for major academic publishers to cut the cost of all subscription agreements by 25 per cent, due to  the  financial impact of the pandemic. 

Caren Milloy, Jisc’s director of licensing, said that while the response from publishers to the call for price reductions “has been constructive”, prices freezes were not enough to reduce expenditure to the levels of cuts institutions are facing. “If a publisher has not provided a discount, their agreement will be top of the list for cancellation.”

“This is an unprecedented situation, never before has the sector sought reductions to content expenditure at this level,” Milloy told Research Professional News.

“What we want to avoid is a situation that forces institutions into cancellation of journal agreements. The solution to this is to reduce the costs of agreements and offer flexibility over the coming years. Publishers who do this will be recognised by institutions, those that do not, will be under scrutiny and their agreements open to cancellation.”

David Prosser, executive director at RLUK said: “The only place where there will be enough money to make large enough savings is ‘big deals’ with publishers. Unless there are significant price reductions, these big deals will inevitably be cut—to the detriment of scholarship and publishers alike.”  

And Ann Rossiter, executive director at Sconul, added that “universities want to a provide the maximum access to research outputs, but this cannot be at any cost”.

Jisc said it has asked major publishers to resubmit their subscription offers for the next academic year before mid-August. 

An expert group from the agency will review the updated proposals on the 10 September and share them with universities.