Speaking Truth to Power: Kim Armstrong on libraries and consortia joining together to advocate for change in unfavorable terms from publishers

Aug 15, 2018, 14:05 PM

In a wide-ranging interview, the Society of Scholarly Publishing's Roger Schonfeld interviewed the Big Ten Academic Alliance's Kim Armstrong on licensing, scholarly publishing, and the recent pushback by the BTAA and other consortia on Taylor & Francis' attempt to create a moving wall model to access backfiles.

In a wide-ranging interview, the Society for Scholarly Publishing's Roger Schonfeld interviewed the Big Ten Academic Alliance's Kim Armstrong on content licensing, scholarly publishing, and the recent pushback by the BTAA and other consortia on Taylor & Francis' attempt to create a moving wall model for backfile subscriptions.

Organized by Armstrong, consortia representing libraries with over $60 million in annual spend with T&F worked together to oppose:

the creation of an opportunity to monetize content that previously had been included with subscriptions;
the breach of good faith under which our libraries had conducted business with T&F; and
the disservice to the user community who would find an annual loss of content problematic for their work.

As a result, T&F backed away from their proposal in North America, restoring what they call complimentary access to a fixed point in time.

Full article on Scholarly Kitchen:

Advocating for Change by Limiting New Business: An Interview with BTAA’s Kimberly Armstrong