I don’t intend to turn this into a newsblog about the Nature Publishing Group vs. California Digital Library clash of the titans. Others are better suited for the task. I’d start with Dorothea’s Book of Trogool blog, as her posts Musings on worms turning and Gauntlet volleying are excellent for her own writing and for the links to other sources.

I did want to post again today to share my email to the Humanties Division faculty here at Colorado College. I think this is a great opportunity to foreground how this is important to faculty and to institutions, and not just to libraries and librarians. Edited to add: If anyone would like to use any of my language in drafting emails to your own faculty, of course you may be my guest.

Dear Humanities Division faculty,

I wanted to be sure that the confrontation between
Nature Publishing Group and the University of
California faculty and library didn’t slip past
your notice.

In short, The Nature Publishing Group (NPG) (which
publishes “Nature” along with many other journals)
wanted to re-negotiate its contract with the
University of California system, with a price
increase amounting to about 400% (or over one
million dollars). The University not only resisted
such an increase, but some faculty there have
organized a boycott of Nature journals: no
submitting papers, no peer review, no editorial
boards, and so on. In short, withholding their
mostly-free labor in the face of this price
increase. Since then, NPG has responded and
UC/California Digital Library has responded to
that response.

I would welcome further discussion of this matter
and how it affects the humanities. For a
discussion of the humanities vis-a-vis science and
technology publishing, I recommend you read the
excellent blog post “Fight Club soap” by the
University of Virginia’s Bethany Nowviskie:
http://nowviskie.org/2010/fight-club-soap/

If you would like to read more (and I hope you
do), here are some links for you:

Chronicle of Higher Ed, June 8, 2010 U. of
California Tries Just Saying No to Rising Journal
Costs
http://chronicle.com/article/U-of-California-Tries-Just/65823/

The letter from the California Digital Library to
the UC faculty is attached to this email as
“Nature_Faculty_Letter-June_2010.pdf“

The response from Nature Publishg Group raises the
novel idea that other institutions are currently
“subsidizing” UC’s “discount,” and characterizes
the UC position as unreasonable.
http://www.nature.com/press_releases/cdl.html

The response to that response from the
California Digital Library — pointing out the
idea of a discount from a set “list price” is
meaningless, and containing the wonderful line “In
fact, we would welcome more transparent means of
determining what UC Faculty contribute and how
this virtually free labor gets factored into
revenue calculations or potentially could be used
to offset subscription rates. “– is also attached
to this message, with the filename
“UC_Response_to_Nature_Publishing_Group.pdf“

Thanks,
Steve

I would love to see how others are talking to their faculty about this, too.