: Journal subscription secrecy Robert Darnton, an accomplished scholar and important name in the open access movement, has a piece in the current New York Review of Books, The Library: Three Jeremiads,

Robert Darnton, an accomplished scholar and important name in the open access movement, has a piece in the current New York Review of Books, The Library: Three Jeremiads, where he mentions that

publishers usually insist on keeping the terms [of any library's subscriptions to their journals] secret, so that one library cannot negotiate for cheaper rates by citing an advantage obtained by another library. A recent court case in the state of Washington makes it seem possible that publishers will no longer be able to prevent the circulation of information about their contracts

What was the court case, and does the judgement suggest that there will be better information about journal subscription prices in future?

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@Sarah872

The court ruling in Washington state appears to be this one. The court stated that the money paid by the state university for journal subscriptions is a matter of public record, and therefore subject to open-records requests—despite the non-disclosure clause in the contract. The vendor has chosen not to appeal.

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@Sims2267584

This isn't going to affect the subscription price for readers to purchase the journals, nor will it most likely affect writers in anyway. When a library wants to receive a subscription to a journal or magazine, they have to pay a higher price since more people will be reading them. Even when they purchase books they pay a higher price than an average reader would pay. What this court case allows the libraries to do it talk to each other about how much they paid for their subscription. If Library A finds out Library B paid less, they can try and negotiate with the publisher to give them the same price as Library B.

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: Journal subscription secrecy Robert Darnton, an accomplished scholar and important name in the open access movement, has a piece in the current New York Review of Books, The Library: Three Jeremiads,

More posts by @Sarah872

: How to handle foreign military ranks? Suppose you have a character who has a rank in a foreign military - say, Feldwebel Hans. That's the equivalent of a Sergeant. On one hand, having people

: Verbosity: when's enough enough? In corporate life I've come across two general styles of writing: terse and cryptic or long and complete. In my own writing I tend to go too much in the

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