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
