The boycott of academic publisher Elsevier that we reported on earlier this month seems to be having an effect: On Monday, the media giant dropped its support of the Research Works Act, a bill that would have limited public access to federally-funded health research by ceding control to commercial publishers. Hours later, the bill's sponsors pulled the plug on the legislation. Elsevier also released an open letter to math scholars -- who were among the first and highest-profile academics to join the boycott -- stating that the firm would "create a scientific council for mathematics, to ensure that we are working in tandem with the mathematics community to address feedback and to give greater control and transparency". The boycott continues; nearly 7,600 academics had signed on as of Tuesday afternoon.

Late last month, a Cambridge Mathematician wrote a blog post that launched a massive boycott of the largest publisher of academic journals in the world. The boycott, now more than 6,000 academics strong, has ignited a discussion over the cost of, and access to, information published by academics. Rick Karr reports on rising discontent with the current academic publishing model.