Context and Rationale. Why Now? The escalating costs of academic journals are a well known problem in higher education, far outpacing the growth in library budgets and squeezing out libraries’ ability to invest in other content and services needed to support teaching and research. As public investment in higher education continues to decline, many of our campus libraries as well as the California Digital Library (CDL) face persistent budget shortfalls that imperil their ability to continue these licenses. These challenges are reaching a tipping point at UC and elsewhere, leading many of our peer institutions both nationally and globally to cancel large journal packages that contain vast amounts of little- used content in favor of selectively licensing only the materials most needed by their faculty and students. Cancellation of journal subscriptions is also being fueled by the growth of open access. Today, nearly 50% of published research is openly available in some form, 15% of it as immediate, or “gold,” open access (OA); yet subscription costs have neither declined nor stabilized in response. In fact, in addition to annual above-inflation increases, publishers are now extracting even more money from the academy through the growing phenomenon of open access article charges levied on top of subscription payments in so-called ‘hybrid’ journals. It has become increasingly clear that the problem of rising journal costs in the context of a widespread movement toward open access can only be addressed by tackling the subscription system itself. Many peer institutions and consortia in Europe and elsewhere are actively pursuing this goal by committing to a transition to immediate open access publication as an alternative to subscriptions. From the global OA2020 initiative with more than 100 signatories in 35 countries, to Projekt DEAL in Germany, and “No Deal No Review” in Finland, a global movement is gathering to address the unsustainability and restrictive nature of subscription-based journal publication by withdrawing library support for subscriptions and redirecting financial investments toward sustainable open access. These forces are both the product and the markers of irreversible change. Technology has brought with it new affordances and opportunities that are changing the conduct and dissemination of research. Public funding for higher education is unlikely to be restored to previous levels. And our peer institutions have demonstrated that it is possible to break away from ex...
Context and Rationale. The ability to provide coverage for basic health services to all citizens remains a significant challenge in virtually every country. In low-to-middle income countries, limited resources, large informal sectors, and weak tax collection systems exacerbate this difficulty and governments are unable to adequately finance their health sectors (Lagomarsino, Garabrant, Adyas, Muga, & Otoo, 2012). In the 1980’s, user fees were introduced as a means to help finance the healthcare sectors of low-middle income countries (Xxxxxx, 2013). After the implementation of this new financing mechanism in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America, studies were conducted throughout the 1990’s to evaluate the effectiveness of user payment at points of service delivery. But the findings resulted in a growing consensus among global health actors that user fees fall short of covering a significant share of health sector costs (Xxxxxx, 2013). Moreover, they disproportionately affect the poor and most vulnerable for whom the fees can become a significant barrier to access health services. In the first decade of the 21st century, governments began to enact policies to abolish user fees for access to basic health services. Still the issue of health sector financing persists and a significant portion of health care costs continue to fall heavily on households, causing them to face greater out-of-pocket expenditures at service delivery points. For households in fragile economic situations, these out-of-pocket expenses represent a financial burden that often drives them into greater economic hardship and can lead to poorer health outcomes as a result of the lack of access to care (Xxxxxx-Xxxxx & Xxxxx, 2012). The social and economic costs resulting from the absence of health coverage and governments’ inability to finance the cost of health care have, within the last decade, placed the objective of universal health coverage at the forefront of the public health agenda (WHO, 2005).
