[nkurz]

It's no wonder why Elsevier draws such ire from the librarian community... an analogy would be if a company legally disallowed its employees from discussing their salaries with anyone, in order to reduce the information available when any other employee negotiates a salary or raise.

A great comment, but did you intend the part I quoted as ironic? You are correct about the intent and the effect, but I think many (most?) companies request this of employees, and some require it. For managers and supervisors in some states, this is even legally defensible: http://ask.metafilter.com/45192/Wait-you-make-50k-more-than-...

[gjuggler]

No, I didn't intend the irony — I didn't know it was common for employers to formally request that salaries be kept confidential.

However, even if intra-company sharing is discouraged / disallowed, it is still common for job-seekers to know what salary they could expect based on their skill level, other offers of employment, sites like glassdoor, etc.

Perhaps more accurately, you might say journal subscription NDAs are like the only employer in the world threatening to fire you if you ever posted your salary to glassdoor or shared it with a friend who's just starting his career what he might expect to make.