WHEREAS, the Council of Library Deans (COLD) represents the academic interests of the  23 libraries of the California State University system.  The California State University system offers educational opportunities to more than 450,000 students and employs a workforce of 63,357 dedicated faculty, staff, and administrators.  We are committed to providing all students and faculty equitable access to quality research and information.  We provide wide and deep support for the CSU’s curriculum.

The 23 California State University libraries are united in their commitment to supporting the freedom to read as well as the freedom to learn, teach, and create new knowledge in an environment where challenges to those freedoms are increasing throughout the United States.

Three California consortia, representing nearly 60 academic and research institutions, and the Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) today announced the first-ever California-wide transformative open access agreement. It is also ACS’ first “read and publish” agreement in the U.S. composed of multiple consortia.

We are pleased to announce that California State University has successfully finalized a three-year ScienceDirect contract with Elsevier. This renewal continues our positive negotiations and agreement terms that were first put into effect March of 2020.

Why do we need to find a different approach with Elsevier?

In short, because the existing spending on Elsevier is disproportionately large compared to other academic publishers and is unsustainable for the CSU Libraries.