Texas Library Coalition for United Action (TLCUA) is pleased to announce that it has concluded negotiations with Elsevier, and all TLCUA members have new agreements for subscription  journal access. In 2019, 44 public and private university campuses across Texas joined together to form TLCUA to think creatively about access to faculty publications and the sustainability of journal subscriptions. TLCUA has negotiated with Elsevier, the world’s largest publisher of scientific journals, including The Lancet and Cell and over 2,500 other journals covering topics in medicine, biology, psychology, engineering, business and more. The TLCUA effort aligns with other libraries across academia that have sought to evolve the relationship between libraries and publishers and find new ways to thrive together.

All TLCUA members received a discount on journal subscriptions–some as high as 30%–while still maintaining significant amounts of access to journals and combined, realized millions in savings annually. Beyond initial cost savings, Elsevier agreed to a maximum annual increase of 2% over the course of the license agreement, with some years as low as 0%, which is significantly lower than industry standard.

John Sharp, Chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, said, “Since the beginning of the negotiations, the administration and faculty have stood behind the libraries in this effort. We are proud that so many institutions in Texas came together to realize cost savings and increase access not only in Texas but around the world.”

TLCUA certainly had ambitious goals to negotiate sustainable pricing for strained library budgets in higher education, but also made progress on its other goals of improving access to scholarship and providing authors with greater control over their published work over time.

TLCUA and Elsevier have agreed to partner on a pilot project to revert ownership of journal articles back to original authors—and not just those at TLCUA-member institutions. Currently, authors transfer copyright of their work in exchange for that work being published. This pilot will provide for rights to go back to  authors after a period of time that will be collaboratively determined with Elsevier. A subset of Elsevier journals will be chosen to study the impact of the copyright reversion pilot for authors and its applicability more broadly to STEM (scientific, technical, engineering and medical) publishers.

Further, all TLCUA-member authors who choose to publish their work under an open access license will have access to discounted author publication charges (APCs). TLCUA also negotiated a license template that removed non-disclosure terms, restrictions on sharing usage data, and 44-year-old limitations on interlibrary loans (i.e., CONTU Guidelines) to expand library collaboration and improve how libraries can share information on journal usage.

“We worked very hard with Elsevier leadership and negotiators to come to an agreement that aligns the values and priorities of our members and those held by Elsevier,” says lead negotiator and open access advocate Jeffrey Spies of 221B Consulting. “I am particularly excited about the copyright pilot project. Copyright is an often-overlooked ingredient in securing a more open scholarship, and the library community has a real opportunity here: to work with authors to share their work openly because it will once again be their work.”

Along with Spies, the team negotiating with Elsevier consisted of faculty, library leaders and librarians with collections expertise representing the diverse membership of TLCUA. They are David Carlson, former Dean of University Libraries at Texas A&M University; Kelly Gonzalez, Assistant Vice President for Library Services at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Deborah Hathaway, Acquisitions and Collection Development Librarian at the University of Dallas; Ian Knabe, Head of Acquisitions and Resource Sharing at the University of Houston; Asheley Landrum, Assistant Professor of Media and Communication at Texas Tech University; Vagheesh Narasimhan, Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology and Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas Austin; Richard Nollan, former Dean of Libraries at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center; Alexia Thompson-Young, Assistant Director of Scholarly Resources at the University of Texas Austin; Charles Weaver, Department Chair and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University; and Ginger Williams, Head Acquisitions Administrative Librarian at Texas State University.

Initial workshops to define the parameters of the pilot project will begin soon. TLCUA has begun exploring their next negotiation priorities and other projects that can benefit from state-wide collaboration. Sara Lowman, TLCUA Chair and Vice Provost and University Librarian at Rice University, is enthusiastic about the future of TLCUA. “The Coalition demonstrated what can be done when Texas institutions aligned by their principles work together. We have big plans,” she said.

About TLCUA

TLCUA represents more than 660,000 students and 44,000 faculty. This consortium is one of the largest and most diverse library consortia in the United States.  Faculty in the Coalition member libraries account for 7.2% of all research output in the United States and about 6% of all U.S. research published by Elsevier. The economic impact of Coalition members is significant with annual expenditures exceeding $275 million.

Current TLCUA members are:

• Angelo State University
• Baylor University
• Lamar University
• Prairie View A&M University
• Rice University
• Sam Houston State University
• Stephen F. Austin University
• Sul Ross State University
• Tarleton State University
• Texas A&M International University
• Texas A&M University (College Station)
• Texas A&M University-Central Texas
• Texas A&M University-Commerce
• Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
• Texas A&M University-Kingsville
• Texas A&M University-San Antonio
• Texas A&M University-Texarkana
• Texas State University
• Texas Tech University (Lubbock)
• Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso
• Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Lubbock
• The TMC Library
• The University of Texas at Arlington
• The University of Texas at Austin
• The University of Texas at Dallas
• The University of Texas at El Paso
• The University of Texas Permian Basin
• The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
• The University of Texas at San Antonio
• The University of Texas at Tyler
• The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
• The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
• The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
• The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
• The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
• The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler
• University of Dallas
• University of Houston
• University of Houston Clear Lake
• University of Houston Downtown
• University of North Texas
• University of North Texas Health Sciences Center
• West Texas A&M University

New coalition seeks lower costs and greater access to research.

Twenty-seven universities across Texas have joined forces as the Texas Library Coalition for United Action (TLCUA) to think creatively about access to faculty publications and the sustainability of journal subscriptions. TLCUA has organized to identify the best way to change current models and the relationships between academic institutions and publishers. The goals of the Coalition are ambitious – improved access to scholarship, greater control over faculty content, and pricing models that are sustainable for strained library budgets in higher education. 

The sustainability of providing scholarly research at ever-increasing costs is putting these academic libraries in difficult positions as they work to offer access to scholars on their campuses.  

“We are nearing a tipping point where we can no longer continue under the current business model,” said Sara Lowman, Vice Provost & University Librarian at Rice University and chair of the Coalition Steering Committee. “We want to come up with solutions that benefit everyone involved: the taxpayers and others who fund our research, the professors who conduct the research, the publishers who disseminate our research findings, and people around the world who benefit from research conducted in Texas.”  

Technology has provided greater opportunities for wider availability of resources, and the Coalition wants those opportunities to be reflected in agreements that will benefit all academic libraries whether public or private, urban or rural. 

The Coalition has begun its mission by entering into dialog with academic publisher Elsevier. They hope that through positive engagement and mutual understanding, an improved and sustainable model for the dissemination of scholarship can be achieved. 

“We value the content in Elsevier journals and look forward to working with Elsevier to come to a mutually beneficial agreement,” Lowman said. 

Elsevier is the world’s largest publisher of scholarly work, with 70 offices in 24 countries. It publishes 2,500 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, covering topics in medicine, biology, psychology, business, and more. Elsevier has been involved in a number of negotiations with US universities recently, including the University of California system, California State University, Carnegie Mellon University, Louisiana State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Washington University in St. Louis. 

The Coalition institutions collectively have more than 397,000 students and 25,000 faculty. Their Elsevier subscriptions represent a significant investment estimated at over $20 million. By these and other measures, the Coalition represents one of the largest and most diverse U.S. collective negotiation consortia of its kind. 

The current members of the Texas Library Coalition for United Action are: 

• Angelo State University 
• Baylor University 
• Lamar University 
• Prairie View A&M University 
• Rice University 
• Sam Houston State University 
• Stephen F. Austin University 
• Sul Ross State University 
• Tarleton State University 
• Texas A&M International University 
• Texas A&M University (College Station) 
• Texas A&M University-Central Texas 
• Texas A&M University-Commerce 
• Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi 
• Texas A&M University-Kingsville 
• Texas A&M University-San Antonio 
• Texas A&M University-Texarkana 
• Texas State University 
• Texas Tech University (Lubbock) 
• Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso 
• Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Lubbock 
• University of Dallas 
• University of Houston 
• University of Houston Clear Lake 
• University of Houston Downtown 
• The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center 
• West Texas A&M University