University Libraries Signs Historic Agreement with Elsevier
By Marketing and Communications | 11-30-2022
College Station, TX (November 2022) - The Texas A&M University Libraries, as part of the Texas Library Coalition for United Action (TLCUA), is pleased to announce that they have concluded negotiations with the world’s largest scholarly publisher, Elsevier, and have a new contract that will save Texas A&M University and the State of Texas $700,000 annually.
Julie Mosbo Ballestro, university librarian & assistant provost of the Texas A&M University Libraries, said, “I am very excited that the work of the coalition has resulted in a positive, collaborative agreement with Elsevier. This agreement not only supports future cost savings for the University Libraries but also supports one of the University Libraries’ priorities of enhancing the Texas A&M research enterprise and faculty scholarly publishing through open access and author copyright education.”
Two years ago, the University Libraries joined together with 43 public and private university libraries across Texas to form TLCUA. The first goal of the coalition was to think creatively about access to faculty publications and the sustainability of journal subscriptions with Elsevier. After working for over two years, each institution has signed a new contract with Elsevier saving each institution and the state of Texas countless dollars.
John Sharp, chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, said, “Since the beginning of the negotiations, the administration and faculty have stood behind the libraries in this effort. We are proud that so many institutions in Texas came together to realize cost savings and increase access not only in Texas but around the world.”
An additional and exciting result of the negotiations is that TLCUA will partner with Elsevier to look at new publishing models that benefit authors. Specifically, TLCUA will partner with Elsevier to conduct copyright workshops exploring the effects of reverting ownership of journal articles back to the original authors after a period of time. A subset of Elsevier journals will be chosen for this pilot studying the implications for both authors and Elsevier.
For the current list of journal subscriptions offered by the University Libraries, please visit tx.ag/ElsevierAgreement.
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Press Contact: Ivy Mestrovic, communication specialist, University Libraries; 979-458-2420, imestrovic@library.tamu.edu
About TLCUA
TLCUA represents more than 320,000 students and 14,000 faculty and is one of the largest and most diverse library consortia in the United States. Faculty in the coalition member libraries account for 7.2% of all research output in the U.S. and about 6% of all U.S. research published by Elsevier. For more information and a complete list of TLCUA institutions, visit https://tlcua.org
University Libraries Contact:
Julie Mosbo Ballestro
University Librarian & Assistant Provost
universitylibrarian@library.tamu.edu
TLCUA Contact:
Dr. Jeffrey Spies
TLCUA lead negotiator
press@221b.io