Dear Colleauges:

The following message went out to today SUNY Libraries from the SUNY Library Consortium Elsevier/Science Direct negotiating team.

Greetings and best wishes for the new year.  As you know, our license for ScienceDirect was scheduled to expire December 31, 2019. Since negotiations with Elsevier are ongoing, we have entered into a 3-month extension which should give time for our discussions to conclude. Any financial aspects of the extension will only be executed if we are unable to reach agreement with the company for a new license.

 Negotiations are ongoing with our next session with the company scheduled for next week. 

 SUNY has negotiated a special pricing agreement for SUNY campuses that are interested in utilizing the services of Reprints Desk, a company that offers article level access to full-text scientific literature.  This service will help provide alternative access to Science Direct articles, should the contract with Elsevier not be renewed.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Mark

Dear Campus Community:

I am writing to offer a brief update of our negotiations with Elsevier.  As you may be aware, the SUNY Library Consortium (SLC) has been negotiating with Elsevier on behalf of SUNY institutions over its terms of renewal for ScienceDirect, a platform that provides access to thousands of journal articles and books, most of them published by Elsevier or one of its imprints.  The SUNY-wide subscription to ScienceDirect expires on December 31, 2019.  Despite the SLC’s diligent work over the past two+ years, negotiations are at an impasse.

Thus, I am also writing to assure you that should SUNY decide not to renew its ScienceDirect subscription, Sojourner Truth Library patrons will experience minimal disruption.  Students, faculty and staff will still be able to access core Elsevier backfile content directly.  Other content will be accessible through Interlibrary Loan – often with minimal delay.

As additional background, please be aware that SUNYwide access to ScienceDirect is very costly, reaching over $9 million last year ($45 million over the life of the contract).  This accounts for about 25% of SUNY’s overall journal expenditures.  SUNY currently pays more than twice as much per FTE for ScienceDirect than other major consortia. Moreover, a recent study by SUNY ESF librarians concluded that at their institution, one that specializes in the sciences, only about 2% of ScienceDirect titles are being accessed by student and faculty researchers.  This suggests that much of the content we are paying for is generally unused.  (See https://libguides.esf.edu/Elsevier)

Following months of activity and several negotiating sessions, Elsevier has not offered SUNY a fair and reasonable renewal price.

The SLC working group will be reaching out to Elsevier to conduct another round of negotiations before December 31, 2019.  SLC negotiators have received support from many SUNY campus administrations, and from the SUNY faculty, to decline renewal should Elsevier not lower their costs significantly.  At their October 10-12, 2019 Plenary, the SUNY University Faculty Senate adopted a resolution to decline a SUNYwide ScienceDirect renewal, and several campuses have affirmed that resolution.  The text of that resolution can be found at http://www.sunyufs.us/all-docs-183rd-system.html.

More information is forthcoming.  Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Mark

Conversation One is cancelled for today, May 30, 2018.

We hope to see you next week, June 6, 2018.

Remember to Join the mailing list for the most current updates.

Another semester nearly gone.  Will there be a Conversation today?  Well I’ll be there!  If you’re around and interested, stop in.  And no matter how many people there are, something interesting’s bound to happen…

There will be intermittent Conversation opportunities during the summer.  If interested, get on the mailing list.

Thanks to everyone who made this another amazing semester!

My conversation with Dr. Adams and two guests on the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you’re looking for a great way to expand your encounter with Black history beyond the month of February, check out Glory Days by Janus Adams*. This book – available in the Library – provides 365 brief, powerful essays highlighting African American contributions to the political, scientific, athletic, artistic, and economic life of the U.S., one for each day of the year.

Each essay carries the reader on a journey, propelled by Dr. Adams’ passionate, unsparing prose.  For in celebrating achievement, she doesn’t hesitate to expose the viciousness of the obstacles overcome.  Even if you don’t check out the book, I urge you to read the introduction. Written in 1995 it sounds notes of eerie familiarity, of an era of growing hostility toward people of color. It states as the book’s purpose: to remind those people – and those who would undermine them – of their majestic determination to rise, to love themselves and their children, and assert their right to happiness and success, again and again, often over the persecution and hatred of their countrymen.

If you marveled at the power of her oratory, or are curious what compelled a return performance of her brilliant lecture, Glory Days will prove that performance was no fluke.

*Last Fall’s Distinguished Speaker at SUNY New Paltz, the first ever invited to reprise her lecture.  She delivered her talk “Know When to Leave the Plantation” again last week.