We have begun cancelling print periodicals only when we had a signed license agreement guaranteeing perpetual access in the event of a cancellation.  We have the additional backup of Portico here; we subscribe to Portico and most of our “safe” journal vendors have most of the canceled journals in Portico now.

 

I wouldn’t consider anything on the Highwire platform safe to cancel unless you got a signed license from a publisher guaranteeing perpetual access to a particular title.  Same thing with other platforms like Caliber, Metapress, etc.  In the case of journal aggregators like EBSCOHOST, I wouldn’t cancel any print title there if it weren’t held in a safe place elsewhere.  It’s just too easy for journals to appear and disappear, either chunks or whole runs.  They’re not all in JSTOR, and even the ones that are will probably have a moving wall blocking current content.

 

--

 

Diane Westerfield

Electronic Resources and Serials Librarian

Colorado College, Tutt Library

(719) 389-6661

(719) 389-6082 (fax)

diane.westerfield@coloradocollege.edu

 

 

 

From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of O'Brien, Pamela
Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 1:37 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [SERIALST] Back Access to Journals

 

Hi Diane,

 

This has been a problem with us also in the past year or so.  And I agree it is primarily Highwire-accessed journals that provided so-called “free access”. 

 

Then, when the publisher decides to charge for Archival or Legacy Backfiles, some of those years we used to get for free become part of the backfile and we no longer have access.

 

This was really an issue for us, because we just had a huge space reduction and had to weed most of our bound print collection.  I had extensively researched access start dates, reliability of access, whether it was from consortiums or subscriptions, etc…and I still got burned by a few titles that suddenly removed years from our access that fell into that newly created “archive period”.

 

Basically, I have learned that any access dates can be changed at any time…unless you have made the one-time purchase of an archive, with a specific start and end date.

 

Pam

 

Pamela L. O'Brien

Library Assistant

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Biomedical Library

262 Danny Thomas Place

Memphis, TN 38105

901-595-3389

 

 


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