The UKB consortium in the Netherlands, which comprises academic libraries have recently issued a policy statement on the pricing of academic journals. This highlights the ongoing problems faced by librarians in meeting unreasonable price increases for academic journals and suggests that solutions must be sought at national or even international level. A five-point action plan is laid out which includes:

Giving member libraries information on the reasonableness of particular price increases

Getting endorsement from fellow organisations internationally

Maximising publicity for any action

Educating academics about their policies and seeking their help

Promoting dialogue with publishers

UKB has invited other libraries to publicly support this initiative.

CURL (the Consortium of University Research Libraries) represents the libraries of the universities of Birmingham, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, King