Support for UC-Nature ban

University of California scientists are speaking out in favor of UC's threat to boycott Nature Publishing Group over a proposed 400 percent hike in licensing fees. "Nature is making a very unfortunate move here," said linkurl:Alex Bell,;http://www.cchem.berkeley.edu/atbgrp/research.html a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. "Multiple-fold increases are unjustified. I think it's bordering on exploitation." In a letter mass e-mailed to faculty earlier this week and linkurl:posted on the UC Libraries website,;http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2010/06/09/letter-to-uc-faculty-on-nature-publishing-group-subscription-increases/ the California Digital Library and the University Committee on Library and Scholarly Communications say the school is facing an "impending crisis," a proposed licensing price hike that would raise the cost for 67 Nature Publishing Group (NPG) journals by well over $1 million per year. The proposed new fees come at a time when UC libraries are in an economic pinch and worked all last year to reduce their electronic journal costs by $1...