Elsevier, bepress, and a Glimpse at the Future of Scholarly Communication

The acquisition of bepress by Elsevier in August 2017, while unpopular among many librarians, provides both companies opportunities for expansion and growth. This Balance Point column outlines some of the benefits to both companies and the reaction by the library community. Also addressed is the announcement by the Penn Libraries that they are searching for a new open source repository potentially to replace bepress’s Digital Commons. The column concludes with some discussion of Elsevier’s relationship with open access content and the impact of the acquisition on the scholarly communications infrastructure