Tyska Max Planck-institutet är utan jämförelse europas främsta
forskningsintstitution har enligt ett pressmeddelande tröttnat på
förlaget Springers prissättning av sitt paket av elektroniska tid-
skrifter enligt en artikel i heise online i fredags
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/97652
The Max Planck Society, for those unfamiliar, operates 80 research
institutes with more than 12,000 staff members and 9,000 Ph.D. students,
post-docs, guest scientists and researchers, and student assistants.
Last week's Nobel prizes honored Gerhard Ertl (Chemistry, Fritz Haber
Institute) and the UN IPCC (Peace, Max-Planck-Institute for
Meteorology).
Se även Wikipedia
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck-institutet
En analys av användingen och en jämförelse med andra tidskriftspaket
visade att Springers pris låg dubbelt så högt än vad Max Planck-institutet
ansåg rimligt.
Liksom en rad av defrämsta amerikanska forskningsbiblioteken har nu även
ett Europas främsta vägrat acceptera överpriser
Max Planck-institutet är len av initiativ agarna till Berlindeklarationen
om fri publicering.
I Sverige har vi ett konsortieavtal på fem år, 2006-2010 som ett trettiotal
bibliotek undertecknat
Jan
Following several fruitless rounds of talks the Max Planck Society (MPG
<http://www.mpg.de>) has, effective January 1, 2008, terminated the
online contract with the Springer publishing house which for eight years
now has given all institutes electronic access to some 1,200 scientific
journals. The analysis of user statistics and comparisons with other
important publishing houses had shown that Springer was charging twice
the amount the MPG still considered justifiable for access to the
journals, the Society declared. "And that 'justifiable' rate is still
higher than comparable offers of other major publishing houses," a
spokesman of the Max Planck Digital Library <http://www.mpdl.mpg.de/>
told heise online.
The failure of the talks means that the various institutes will soon no
longer be able to access the common pool of scientific literature via
the research surface by the name of SpringerLink
<http://www.springerlink.com/home/main.mpx> that the publishing house
provides. The Society will now with the institutes most affected attempt
to work out a strategy whereby the supply of indispensable scientific
content can be ensure in a cost-effective way. Because the subscriptions
taken out in 1997 included the electronic archive rights, which
according to the contract stay in force beyond the termination of the
same, the scientists will, however, continue to enjoy online access to
the paid-for, older volumes of the journals.
According to the MPG the failure of the talks with Springer marks "what
for now is the high point" in a dispute with a number of globally
operating scientific publishing houses. The soaring prices in the
scientific information domain have already caused a change of attitude
in a number of players. Thus MPG is one of the initiators of the "Berlin
Declaration <http://oa.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html>
on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and the Humanities" -- the
key demand of which is open access to the results of publicly funded
research -- which to date has been signed by more than 240 scientific
organizations.
When publishing houses have the market power to charge excessive prices
and the legislator is unwilling to subject such inappropriate behavior
to any form of legal control the only course that remains is for the
scientific community to take matters into its own hands, the MPG stated.
"Even at the very last minute the Springer publishing house had not been
prepared to lower its inflated prices," MPG Vice President Kurt Mehlhorn
said. "The MPG therefore had had no other option but to terminate the
contract," he added. (/Richard Sietmann/) / (jk
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>/c't)
--
Jan Szczepanski
Förste bibliotekarie
Goteborgs universitetsbibliotek
Box 222
SE 405 30 Goteborg, SWEDEN
Tel: +46 31 773 1164 Fax: +46 31 163797
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
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