The University of Oregon Libraries, working together with librarians from Oregon State University and Portland State University, has initiated contract negotiations with the company Elsevier, a publisher and global provider of information and analytics for educators, researchers and health care professionals that has supplied the UO with access to scholarly journals over the past decade. This will be UO’s first major renegotiation of terms with Elsevier since 2014. UO's current contract with Elsevier ends Dec. 31. If the parties cannot come to an agreement by that time, the UO is prepared to leave the relationship, joining a growing number of major research institutions that have stopped or significantly reduced their spending with Elsevier.
For the most up to date information on the Elsevier negotiation, please visit our contract negotiation information page:
In the event that the library ends our contract with Elsevier, we've developed the following guide to help support the UO Community in identifying alternative ways to access Elsevier articles. If you have questions or need additional support, we also encourage you to reach out to your Subject Librarian for help.
Install browser plug-insYou can find open access articles through browser extensions. These tools find legally available manuscript versions as well as final published articles when the journal allows it or the journal is open access. We recommending installing:
Search open repositories and portalsUO community members will retain access to all new Elsevier content published on an open access basis, including: All publications in fully open SCOAP3 journals such as Physics Letters B; 50% of new Cell Press articles, and 100% of Cell Press articles older than 12 months; All articles in any journal with a corresponding author affiliated with one of these institutions covered by a blanket OA publishing agreement. In 2023, based on historic usage and subscription coverage, we estimate that 85% of article requests would be instantly accessible for UO users. To search for open content, we recommend starting with the following:
UO Libraries toolsBased on historic usage, we're estimating that around 15% of article requests would hit a paywall and have to be re-routed through another source to obtain the desired material. If you can't find an open access version of the article, we recommend that you explore UO Libraries tools and services:
Ask the authorMost publishers allow authors to responsibly share their own publications. Contact the author directly to request a preprint. Some authors are open to receiving requests for articles via social networking sites for researchers such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate.
Questions?Do you have additional questions or need support finding articles? Contact your Subject Librarian for help.
The following is a list of the 189 journals we access through Elsevier, which will no longer be subscribed to as of January 2023. We will retain perpetual access to the content in these journals published through December 2022.
Alternative access to Elsevier articles by the University of Oregon Libraries is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. It is a derivative of the original work, MIT Alternative access to Elsevier, CC-BY-NC, and it adapts content from the University of California Office of Scholarly Communications quick guide, CC-BY and the MIT How to Find Openly Accessible Articles page, CC-BY-NC.
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