[teilo]

Elzevier isn't the only one, either. While not as egregious, there is Proquest, who locks private researchers out of many databases and digital works (mostly historical works) that are not available anywhere else. If one is not an enrolled student or faculty member of an institution that pays for an institutional subscription, there is no way to gain access to their databases.

This type of intellectual elitism disgusts me. It's particularly bad when I would pay for access to some of their databases, but I'm not even given the choice.

[betterunix2]

One thing to keep in mind is that European universities have encouraged this situation by insisting that faculty publish in "legitimate" journals, where "legitimate" means "published by one of the major academic publishing companies." It has been a problem for CS faculty who have to convince universities that conference proceedings carry more weight in CS than journal articles, which is why you see Springer publishing "official" copies of so many conference papers (while "unofficial" copies can typically be found at the authors' personal webpage).