Simple common sense and the brutal math of finite budgets tells us there’s more than correlation between exploding costs for journals from big vendors and receding investments in monographs and journals published by university presses. One of the most compelling critiques of the Big Deals is the way their sheer size and perceived “must have” status crowd out competitors in the journal market as well as non-journal resources like monographs.

It’s wonderful, then, to see the UC Press recognize its shared interest with the University of California system when it comes to holding the line against continuing Big Deal price hikes. When libraries reclaim control of our budgets from the biggest vendors, we can start to return balance to the ecosystem, including support for important partners like the university presses. The TOME Project is a great example of presses and libraries finding innovative ways to support faculty authors, open access, and high quality scholarship at the same time. Read more about how the UC Press shares the UC’s commitment to a diverse ecosystem of scholarly publishing models:

UC Press Supports University of California’s Stance on Elsevier – UC Press Blog