The COAPI Steering Committee believes the UF-Elsevier model sets a dangerous precedent that undermines our commitment to open access and the fundamental purpose of institutional repositories as tools for enabling that access. By shifting the UF repository’s focus to serving as a discovery layer for pay-walled articles, the UF-Elsevier model subverts the commonly held vision of repositories as a collective mechanism through which academic libraries empower all users, regardless of their location, affiliation, or economic means, through open dissemination of scholarship. We are also concerned about ceding responsibility for repository content to a company that has proven to be antagonistic to our institutional open access policies and the principles on which they are based. For a more in-depth analysis of these issues, we highly recommend a recent post on the “In the Open” blog, which articulates related perspectives that we wholeheartedly endorse.
The COAPI Steering Committee
June 2, 2016
Michael Boock, Oregon State University
Ada Emmett, University of Kansas
Anne Langley, Pennsylvania State University
Catherine Mitchell, California Digital Library
Jere Odell (Chair), Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis
George Porter, California Institute of Technology
Simone Sacchi, Columbia University
Shan Sutton, University of Arizona
