I may be getting into deep water here, but at the 2001 UKSG conference I
gave a paper which included the following (Serials, July 2001 14(2)
p157)

"I am beginning to think that there should be a E-journal Charter that
sets out some basic rights, over and above whatever lawyers have
included in the licence terms.  These might include (just for the sake
of illustration)

Publishers
.. have the right to survive as long as they are meeting user
requirements
..should not have to read critical messages on email lists about issues
that should have first been brought to their attention by the
complainant personally

Libraries
.. have a right to get what they have paid for
.. have a right to be informed about technical and other problems at the
earliest possible opportunity
..have a right to expect the journal issue to be loaded correctly and on
a timely basis"

Maybe the time has come where we really do need such a Charter, which is
different from a license agreement, and sets out some best practices in
e-journal management, including ISSN issues, grace periods, changes to
titles, access to back issues etc., fully supported help desk, clarity
about support for SFX etc.

Publishers who accept these practices could be offered a UKSG
CharterMark. Now something like this may well exist (the problem of
being a consultant rather than a practioner!) so if it does, can someone
tell me where it is, and if it does not, a) do you feel we should have
something like this and b) what should the role of UKSG be?

There should be a quid pro quo from the library profession about the way
in which they will work with publishers, and subscription agents.


Martin White
Managing Director
Intranet Focus Ltd
12 Allcard Close, Horsham, RH12 5AJ
Tel. +44 (0) 1403 267030
http://www.intranetfocus.com
http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog




-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lesley Crawshaw
Sent: 04 April 2002 10:30
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Extended Backfiles - Subscription Products, One-off payments or
Free to the World

Hi,

Many of us dreamed of the day when whole journals went online, it is
exactly
what our users want/need - to have access to the journals literature
from
their desktop, not just the last few years, to be able to jump from
reference to reference, cited article to article etc. etc. For libraries
it
offered the chance to remove all those print journals taking up valuable
space, many of which are slowly disintegrating with the march of time,
others having articles ripped out by selfish users. Is this dream in
danger
of becoming a nightmare? Has a print subscription become the only safe
option? It's a very strange world indeed!

I was wondering how members of this list see the variety of options that
already exist for access to the increasing number of extended electronic
journal backfiles and how they are planning to deal with them.

In some cases e.g. Elsevier a substantial one-off payment is required to
secure access to these backfiles e.g. Organic Chemistry and Inorganic
Chemistry backfiles. In some cases the backfiles may be free, but only
those
with an account on the service where they are located can access the
backfiles e.g. FEBS Letters through ScienceDirect. In the case of CAS it
is
intended to charge an substantial annual fee for access to the archive,
which because of ACS's moving wall policy for current electronic only
subscriptions ("ACS policy is to supply current plus the previous 5
years
archives.  This year you will have access to 1997 onwards, next year it
will
be 1998 onwards.  This is their policy across the world.") means that
anyone
that has cancelled their print subscriptions for ACS journals and has
moved
to online only will have no alternative but to pay the annual fee,
otherwise
they will only have access to the last 5 years. Then of course we have
those
journal backfiles on HighWire which are part of the  highly valued "free
backfiles programme" which have offered their archive "free to the
world"
e.g. Journal of Biological Chemistry (now back to 1980). If only others
could be like the ASBMB! In the case of the American Institute of
Physics an
additional annual maintenance fee of $50 - $75 secures access to their
extended backfiles (now back to 1985). Then of course we have the JSTOR
archives which for an annual fee secures access for the duration of the
license to the full archive.

These examples illustrate the wide variety of approaches publishers are
taking in providing access to their backfiles and the situation is bound
to
get more complicated as more and more publishers/societies put their
backfiles online. We already have a plethora of arrangements for journal
subscriptions, many of which are changing from year to year often
without
any notification to us from publishers or agents. Is there room in our
budgets for all these additional costs? Do we have the staff/capacity to
deal with all these complex arrangements?

Any comments?

Cheers
Lesley

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant
Learning and Information Services,
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB UK
                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
phone:  01707 284662      fax: 01707 284666
web: http://www.herts.ac.uk/lis/subjects/natsci/ejournal/
list owner: [log in to unmask]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~