paris

A physicist at Florida State University has resigned as an unpaid referee for a nuclear physics journal published by Elsevier Science in protest at inflation in the price of the company's journals. His home institution supports his decision.

Mark Riley says he was “upset” at cut-backs in journal subscriptions at his university. Its library, like many worldwide, has faced annual inflation in journal prices of around 20 per cent over the past decade. As a result it has cancelled some 2,000 titles and plans to cut a further $800,000 worth of journals over the next three years.

In a letter of resignation to Jeanette Bakker, executive editor ofNuclear Physics A — which costs $7,234 a year — Riley wrote: “I am dismayed by the pricing and inflation policies of Elsevier and the significant part they have played, and are playing, in the present journal budget crisis.” He adds: “While I respect the quality ofNuclear Physics A as a scientific journal, I feel honour bound to minimize my involvement with Elsevier Publishing at this time.”

Riley says that other referees “should think about what they are doing in refereeing for expensive journals, and remember that the serials crisis is affecting their home institutions”.

Charles Miller, dean of libraries at the university, applauds Riley's decision. Miller says that journal subscriptions account for 75 per cent of the libraries' spending, and that around 25 per cent of this is on Elsevier Science journals.

“We want to go all-electronic, delivering journals to the desktop and phasing out print altogether,” says Miller. But he says this shift is hampered by reluctance on the part of Elsevier Science to dissociate paper and electronic access in its pricing policies.

A new contract with the company has brought down prices, and Miller speaks of “a willingness on Elsevier's part to bring them down further”. The university is demanding that Elsevier provide electronic-only access to all its journals at a 30-40 per cent discount on current prices. So far Elsevier has offered 10 per cent, Miller says.

He warns that the university may cancel expensive journals even if these are in heavy demand by users. “They don't believe we will cancel, but we will.”

Elsevier Science was unavailable for comment. But Geert Noorman, managing director of its Life Sciences Division, recently toldNature that web publishing is putting pressure on publishers: “If the web causes us to have to agree to lower profit margins, then so be it.”