Thanks, John, I do appreciate your feedback and that of all the others...

It’s always worth getting a different perspective...

Best,

Joanne

Joanne V. Romano, MLS

Licensing and Serials Librarian

Houston Academy of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library

1133 John Freeman Blvd.

Houston, TX 77030

713-799-7144

fx: 713-799-7180

joanne.romano@exch.library.tmc.edu

From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of John Lucas
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 11:38 AM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Publisher cancellation policies

Hello Joanne,

Have you checked your subscriptions for those titles you canceled? If you were paying for Print only, but the publisher provided Electronic Access, then you would have no recourse.

However if you were paying for Print & Electronic or Electronic Only, then you should have access to only that electronic content that you paid for. (ie. T&F titles. If you cancel, you LOSE access to all of the backfiles, however if you were buying P&E or E ONLY then those should be accessible) I have some of these titles that I canceled a couple of years ago and we have that portion of the E accessible. (at least the last time I checked) Although you may have purchased the titles since before time began, you might lose some of the earlier years. [I think this is dependent on if you changed subscription agents (we have some) or when their subscription records begin.]

You could contact each of these 'questionable publishers' and fight for some e-content access. If you have other titles with those publishers, this could be further incentive for them to keep your subscriptions.

Confused? So are the rest of us. Thank you for posing this to the rest of us.

With Best Regards,

John Lucas

Serials Librarian
University of Mississippi Medical Center
2500 North State St
Jackson, MS 39216-4505

(PH) (601) 984-1277
(FAX) (601) 815-4569
JLUCAS@ROWLAND.UMSMED.EDU

>>> Joanne Romano <joanne.romano@EXCH.LIBRARY.TMC.EDU> 2/17/2010 7:42 AM >>>

I am wondering how many librarians have dealt with this scenario; we were not able to renew several of our long-standing journal subscriptions for 2010. Most were journals we had subscribed for the last 10 years.

This is nothing new, but so far I've had one publisher cut off our online access completely because we no longer have a current subscription, and another publisher cut off access mid-year in 2009 for the same reason. I'm wondering how many others will do the same.

It's irritating to have paid for content and then not be allowed to retain the access to years paid because you can't keep up with the current subscription-There is nothing that can be done, of course; publishers can enforce any policy they wish. However, I am wondering how many other librarians have had to deal with this practice, and, have you had any success changing a publisher's mind about cutting off access?