UCs threaten to boycott Nature publications over fee increase
By Flavia Casas
June 28, 2010 1:47 a.m.
South campus students and faculty may be in danger of losing access to what they consider one of their best quality and most popular research sources ““ Nature Publishing Group.
UC faculty have been discussing the possibility of boycotting NPG, a print and online scientific journal publication, after receiving word from the California Digital Library, that the group intends to raise CDL license fees by 400 percent.
The CDL co-invests with University of California libraries to assemble a large digital research library accessible only to university students, staff and faculty, said Laine Farley, CDL executive director.
NPG is one of the publishing services UC libraries subscribe to, publishing various renowned scientific journals often referred to by those in the field, including Nature magazine.
“We use (Nature) to reference information and do research, to see what other people and other institutions are doing, so getting rid of it would be bad,” said Aliki Koumenis, a third-year neuroscience student.
Boycotting NPG would mean that if NPG does not negotiate with CDL, all UC libraries will suspend their online subscriptions with the publishing service entirely, according to a June 4 letter sent out by CDL, UC libraries and the University Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication for the Academic Senate.
The letter said accepting NPG’s proposed new license fee is especially difficult with “shrinking UC library budgets.” It also stated that submitting to these increases would “wipe out” all of the libraries’ efforts to reduce spending on electronic journals.
Even so, students and faculty realize the importance of maintaining the university’s access to NPG publications.
Because of its “high-impact factor,” a number used to measure the relative importance of a journal within its field, eliminating all NPG journals from UC libraries would be eliminating a reliable and sought-out source for students.
“In quality, their articles are just better and easier to understand,” said Dylan Husmann, third-year psychobiology student.
“I”˜d prefer something from Nature than from somewhere else. Almost every paper I’ve written has had something from Nature or NPG.”
Shane Butler, a UCLA professor of classics and chair of the Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication, echoed the June 4th letter’s sentiments and calls to action.
“We don’t know what do, but it’s time to take a stand,” Butler said.
In a press release sent out June 9, NPG called the letter’s allegations a “sensationalist use of data” and “a misrepresentation of NPG pricing policies.”
According to NPG’s press release, the CDL had been unfairly receiving “a large, unsustainable discount,” and any price increases would be implemented to level that imbalance.
In addition, the publishing group said maintaining current prices with CDL would not allow NPG to sustain “best quality original research.”
However, the publishing group’s quality research, along with the impact of limiting access to students, is exactly why many UCLA faculty are on the bench about the issue despite the numerous contributions to NPG journals made by UC authors.
According to the June 4 letter, UC authors have contributed approximately 5,300 articles to NPG journals in the past six years ““ a significant amount according to all parties involved. Farley said the situation makes the dynamics interesting, because the consumers are also the producers.
“The idea of a boycott scares me a little bit because they are very good journals,” said Timothy Deming, professor of bioengineering who has been published by Nature.
“You don’t want to impact your grad students by saying, “˜Even though you’ve done tremendous work, you can’t publish in this journal because we’re doing the boycott.'”
However, Michael Sofroniew, professor of neurobiology, said submitting work to any publication is an individual choice that neither the UC nor the CDL can impede upon.
For those who submit their work to Nature despite a boycott, the disadvantage would be other UC students and faculty not having access to it.
Sofroniew, along with other faculty, said he could understand both sides of the issue.
Many said they believe that part of NPG’s decision to raise its license fees was because of the spread of online publications. An increase in online circulation means a decrease in individual subscriptions, which causes publications to lose substantial amounts of potential revenue.
However, Sofroniew and other faculty understand the CDL’s reaction and are well aware of the library’s current “economic distress,” an issue that also became widely known by publications and content providers in CDL’s Open Letter to Licensed Content Providers.
The letter asked content vendors to help CDL “preserve the greatest amount of content possible to meet the information needs of the University of California’s students, faculty and researchers.”
Despite what UC and NPG classified as a misinterpretation of the flexibility of NPG’s prices, all parties involved ““ including NPG ““ said they hope to discuss the matter further and reach an agreement. Whether or not the boycott goes through will depend on the results of this discussion.
The timeline for making a decision is unclear at the moment, Farley said, but the existing contract expires in December, meaning some sort of resolution must be reached by then.
