ResourceBlog Article: A Canadian University Will Not Be Renewing Web of Science from ISI / Thomson Reuters

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Saturday, 19th June 2010

A Canadian University Will Not Be Renewing Web of Science from ISI / Thomson Reuters

Here's a copy of a letter that Mark Leggott, University Librarian at the University of Prince Edward Island (UEPL), sent to the "campus community" about not renewing the school's subscription to Web of Science from ISI/Thomson Reuters.

From the Letter:

This is to inform the UPEI campus community that we have not renewed our subscription to ISI's Web of Science database (WoS). We realize this is a key research database for many of you and we have taken steps to ensure access to appropriate alternative resources, as well as the WoS back?files. Late last year we received notification that our subscription price was going to increase by 120%. A number of factors went into the decision not to renew:

+ a challenging fiscal climate means that we are unlikely to see an increase to Library budgets;
+ any subscription increase in these challenging times is difficult, but an increase of 120% is simply not acceptable;
+ we would have been forced to sign a 3?year agreement, with additional increases in each of the 3 years;
+ a weaker Canadian dollar would have a significant impact on our subscription costs;
+ accommodating this level of increase lends credence to the vendors' business practices and we felt it important to make a statement against these practices (More About a Recent Decision at UC).

In coming to this decision, we also had to deal with a lack of effective support from CRKN [Canadian Research Knowledge Network], which is the national licensing body which has negotiated the WoS and other licenses on our behalf. This has resulted in a challenge determining how best to ensure that we retain access to the system. Last week our access was cut off before we had developed a way to continue service to the component of the database what we have purchased. We "own" WoS backfile content from 1979?2009 and are currently negotiating with ISI to ensure we retain appropriate access to that data.

Access the Complete Letter

Source: UPEI

Hat Tips:
+ Open Access Tracking Project
+ Peter B.
+ @jmarkockerbloom

On a Related Note...
The letter from UPEI contains an excellent list of other databases offering citation info.

See Also: A 2009 Discussion at Google Scholar (GS) by Dr. Peter Jacso About Using GS for Citation Information