As the cost of subscriptions to scientific journals continues to rise, academics at the university and across the world have begun to voice their frustrations.

More than 7,300 researchers have joined a boycott of Elsevier, a prominent publisher of science journals.

The protest began in January, when Timothy Gowers, a mathematics professor at Cambridge University, declared in a blog post that he would no longer edit, contribute to or referee Elsevier publications.

Gowers’ announcement came a little more than a month after two Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif) introduced the Research Works Act for consideration by the House of Representatives. The bill would make it illegal for federally funded research organizations to require scientists to make their studies freely accessible online and originally garnered support from Elsevier and other publishers.

Since the start of the boycott, thousands of researchers, including Georgetown chemistry professor Richard Weiss, have joined Gowers. In response, Elsevier retracted its support of the RWA in a statement issued Monday.

Elsevier is not the only for-profit company in the academic publishing industry, but according to many professors, it has built a reputation for overpricing its materials.

“Of all the publishers, Elsevier is the one that gives the most concern,” Wesley Mathews, a professor in the physics department, said. “Elsevier is a strictly commercial publisher. They’re in it for profit.”

Journals like Elsevier bundle article access according to subject, forcing subscribers to purchase articles they may not want in order to read the articles they’re looking for.

According to Gwen Owens, head of the Blommer Science Library, purchasing three bundles could cost more than $100,000.

Though the university already has print copies of most important journals, it is willing to pay database fees for the ease of online access, Owens said.

“We’re paying not for the intellectual content of the material. We’re paying for the convenience of people being able to access it from their desktop or at home,” she said.

Chemistry department chair YuYe Tong agreed.

“For science, particularly physics and chemistry, archival is very important,” he said. “How easy it is to access the [archives] beyond 10 years has become a very important part of scientific research.”

In 2010, 272,871 full-text Elsevier articles were requested by Georgetown users, a figure that increased to 278,884 articles in 2011.

Tong emphasized that rising costs have negatively impacted scientific advancement because they affect scientists’ use of previously published findings.

“They charge such high prices to the library that it impedes the scientists’ [ability to] access collectively the work that they have done,” he said.

In a press release responding to the boycott, Elsevier noted that the average cost of downloading an article has never been lower and is one-fifth of the cost it was a decade ago.

But Owens countered that, for Georgetown, the average price for a chemistry journal subscription rose more than 24 percent from 2006 to 2011, while the cost of the average biology journal subscription increased by more than 40 percent.

According the Mathews, the impact of rising journal costs will grow this summer with the completion of work on Regents Hall, the university’s new science facility.

“The number of [postdoctoral fellows] associated with the sciences will double, the number of graduate students will probably double and the number of undergraduate [science] majors will go up substantially as well,” Mathews said. “There are going to be a lot more people who will need access to the scientific literature.”

According to Owens, other libraries have begun to cancel some of their subscriptions.

“There’s got to be a point at which we say we can’t do this anymore, and some major universities have already hit that point where they’re starting to cancel journals,” she said. “When enough libraries hit that point, [the publishers’] market is diminishing. They can’t keep bleeding us.”

However, Mathews said that increased costs may play a role in rising prices.

“They are in business to make a buck and it’s an area where making a buck is increasingly difficult,” he said.

Still, Tong hopes that the boycott, combined with recent efforts by the National Institutes of Health and other organizations, will help increase access.

“Slowly, slowly maybe online publication and free open access will force those for-profit companies to lower their prices,” Tong said. “In this regard, I think this boycott is doing a good service for the scientific community.”

Representatives of Elsevier declined to comment.