Controversial limits to full-text of Nature and its specialty titles
The library now has full-text access to Nature and nine of its specialty titles (see below). A username and password are no longer needed for access, but you must connect from the NewYork Weill Cornell Medical Center network.
We have subscribed to these Nature journals despite significant controversy over their restrictions on access and their pricing model. Many libraries throughout the U.S., including our sister library at Cornell-Ithaca, have refused to subscribe to any Nature titles in protest. I hope that you will read the following information about the controversy because it is only through our combined efforts that we will effect changes in Nature's policy and ensure that we will be able to maintain our subscriptions to these important titles.
Restrictions
The publisher offers immediate access to the articles, letters, brief communications, and scientific correspondence. Other material is available to institutional subscribers only after a three month delay from the time of publication. Delayed material includes editorials, opinion, news, commentary, book reviews, analysis, briefs, etc. Personal subscribers will have immediate access to this latter material; only institutional subscribers (the Library) will be subject to this embargo. And finally, Nature does not provide perpetual rights to the archive of the electronic version of the subscribed titles.
Pricing
The Nature pricing model is based on FTE faculty and students and is not the usual model for electronic publications. Where most publishers provide access to the electronic version either free with the print subscription or for an additional cost of between 10%-20%, Nature assumes that all faculty and students will be readers and prices their subscriptions accordingly. This pricing model results in substantially higher prices than those for comparable publications. The result for Weill Cornell Medical Library is an annual cost of $10,122 which represents between 25% and 50% surcharge above the print subscription price.
Libraries that have refused to subscribe have put notices on their web pages or in other ways informed their faculty of their decisions. Harvard's example, that also includes a letter to Nature, can be found at http://lib.harvard.edu/e-resources/details/n/naturexx.html The California Digital Library has also refused to subscribe for all campuses of the University of California and their letter to Nature can be read at http://www.cdlib.org/news/nature_letter.html. These are just two of many examples of the library community's position on Nature's policies.
We decided to subscribe to Nature and its specialty titles because of their importance to the Weill Cornell community. However, we agree with our library colleagues and believe that Nature will change its policies only if the combined scientific community indicates their dissatisfaction. We understand that access to Nature is extremely important and we hope that concerted action among the major research institutions, along with protests from the scientific community, will lead Nature to develop a more acceptable license.
I am asking you to familiarize yourself with this issue and join us in working to obtain a fairer policy from Nature. By subscribing to Nature, we are seeming to agree with their terms. This is definitely not the case. We felt that we could be more effective engaging our scientific community in this dialogue with Nature. If the scientific community, contributors to and readers of Nature, do not join us in this effort, we will continue to see discriminatory restrictions and unrealistic pricing models. At some point in the future, we will no longer be able to afford or accept the current restrictions.
You can help by writing to Nature yourself and expressing your concerns about their licensing policies. In New York, write to:
Mr. Phillip LoFaso, Vice President, Marketing
Nature Publishing Group
345 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10010
p.lofaso@NATURENY.com
You can also email the following individuals at the London office of Nature.
Ms. Della Sar
Director of Global Marketing
d.sar@nature.com
Ms. Annette Thomas
Managing Director
a.thomas@nature.com
Mr. Philip Campbell
Editor
p.campbell@nature.com
Thank you for joining us in this effort. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Bob Braude
746-6070
bbraude@med.cornell.edu
LIST OF NATURE TITLES AVAILABLE ELECTRONICALLY
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