STM publisher Elsevier has reportedly announced that it would restore journal access to German universities after being blocked for over a month now. Negotiations, however, continue between the company and DEAL, a consortium of institutions calling for a nationwide license. Over 60 institutions cancelled their individual subscriptions for 2017 expecting that a new nationwide contract would be in place by January 2017.
In addition to striking a nationwide license agreement, DEAL is also trying to gain open-access to papers written by German authors. According to Nature news, they are planning to engage in other negotiations with other publications including Wiley and Springer Nature later this year.
Institutions' discontinued prescriptions to Elsevier's journals had moderate to severe effects on German research scientists, while some just found the situation irritating, reports Nature. While some senior scientists could access articles through their international colleagues, entry-level scientists had to rely on inter-library loans or other publications to access information relevant to their fields.
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