Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), have written a letter asking their colleagues worldwide to boycott all journals published by Cell Press—including Cell, Molecular Cell, and Neuron—to protest the high price of electronic access.

In the letter, Peter Walter and Keith Yamamoto write that Elsevier, owner of Cell Press, is asking the University of California for an additional $90,000 per year to provide electronic access to the six Cell Press titles—when the university already paid Elsevier $8 million for online access to its other journals in 2002 alone.

Walter told The Scientist that he and Yamamoto decided to write the letter when they lost access to Cell Press journals after moving to a campus that was 20 minutes away from the main campus, which carries paper copies of the journals. They then learned that the university had been trying unsuccessfully to reach a...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!
Already a member?