University of California takes a stand against high-priced journals

The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting that the University is fed up with the incredibly high costs of academic journal subscriptions. This was evidently prompted by a large proposed increase in the subscription fees charged by the Nature Publishing Group.

On Tuesday, a letter went out to all of the university’s faculty members from the California Digital Library, which negotiates the system’s deals with publishers, and the University Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication. The letter said that Nature proposed to raise the cost of California’s license for its journals by 400 percent next year. If the publisher won’t negotiate, the letter said, the system may have to take “more drastic actions” with the help of the faculty. Those actions could include suspending subscriptions to all of the Nature Group journals the California system buys access to

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