Vikings raise their shields against Blackwell price rises

Blogger and open access publishing advocate Peter Suber has revealed how four major university libraries in Norway have issued a joint statement revealing that price negotiations with Blackwell publishing have come to an end and access to Blackwell content will cease.

Back in the autumn the libraries tried to reach an agreement on electronic access prices with Blackwell, with negotiations breaking down researchers, students and academics at the universities from January 1 no longer had access to 778 electronic journals from Blackwell. In a statement the librarians state that they feel the stipulations from Blackwell are "unacceptable" as are the price increases.

"Blackwell has journals covering all universities disciplines, so this will affect all our users, Helge Salvesen of Tromso University Library said in an online statement. Library directors at all of the universities are unanimous in their agreement that the situation is no longer acceptable. The statement has been signed by the library directors of the University of Trondheim, University of Tromso, University of Oslo and the University of Bergen.