But that's not the most important aspect of this move. After all, $11 million is small change for a company whose operating profit is over a billion dollars per year.
In negotiating with Elsevier, UC aimed to accelerate the pace of scientific discovery by ensuring that research produced by UC's 10 campuses -- which accounts for nearly 10 percent of all U.S. publishing output.
$11 million may be 'small change'for a company that size, but losing out on what amounts to a tenth of US academic publishing output just drastically reduced the value of what they have to offer, making it more likely that others will follow suit until hopefully everyone bails on them entirely.