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Open-Access Payment Disagreement

The University of California and publisher Elsevier are sparring over open-access journal payments, Stat News reports.

UC currently pays Elsevier more than $10 million a year so it can access hundreds of Elsevier journals, but UC researchers also pay the publishing company almost $1 million to make their work freely accessible to the public, according to Stat News. It adds that now that UC's contract with Elsevier is up, it wants to change this payment scheme. In particular, Insider Higher Ed notes that UC favors a "read-and-publish" approach in which journal subscription and open-access publishing fees are rolled into one.

Elsevier, though, says its current model is popular and doesn't want to alter it, Stat News adds.

UC is "trying to fundamentally change the ecosystem of scholarly communication," Rick Anderson from the University of Utah tells Insider Higher Ed. He adds that the University of California's size gives it some leverage, as it has 10 campuses.

Stat News notes that the contract between UC and Elsevier expires at the end of the month, but UC-Berkeley librarian Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, who has led negotiations, says he'd be surprised if an agreement is in place by then.

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