I'd like to respond to this message, since I have been in some prior 
dialogue with Patricia about this archive policy.  I've also discussed 
with Lesley Crawshaw who will, I hope, chip in if I have missed anything 
of relevance out!

First, we welcome the right to consult.  US customers of INFORMS, please 
make the most of this opportunity.  I'd also encourage UK customers to 
contact Barry directly if you wish to make comments relating to the 
rolling archive policy, as I believe INFORMS will not be present at the 
UKSG Conference.

The 26 March announcement however does make me wonder if any of our 
concerns so far have been addressed.  INFORMS only recently imposed an 
access control policy on archive prior to 2002 - none of us knew about it; 
it was never noted in contracts or in terms and conditions; subscription 
agents had no information on it.  So it was news to us - and quite 
unwelcome news, considering we had access to material from 1999 and before 
for some journals.

I raised the issue on lis-e-journals following Patricia's initial 
announcement.  At that time other institutions came in and were critical 
of both the moving archive policy and its apparent endorsement by 
librarians (who? none of us were consulted).  It later emerged that the 
archive policy was in fact set by academics who sat on the INFORMS board - 
those same academics, no doubt, who are now wondering why 'we' (i.e. the 
subscribing institutions) have removed journal content from them when they 
try to access it.

So the new announcement allows us access to a further year of archive 
(under the new policy we would have access from 2002 to date this year, 
and from 2003 onwards in 2008).  It is a nice gesture, but fails to 
address our concern as a community that archive content we have had access 
to for years has suddenly, without explanation or warning, been removed, 
and the situation which has allowed an unknown archive policy to suddenly 
appear because the new journal platform can technically make it so!

I quote:

"The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
(INFORMS(r)), publisher of 11 highly regarded scholarly journals and an
online open-access journal today announced that it has updated its
online subscription policy and is providing institutional online
subscribers with additional volumes for the balance of 2007 and 2008.
Under the new policy, INFORMS will offer 2007 and 2008 subscribers
access to relevant journal volumes published back to and including 2001.
Previously, 2007 institutional subscribers had access to INFORMS
journals published from 2002 forward. The association is modifying its
rolling wall subscription policy in response to the concerns of
librarians".

Hmm.

Does anyone think this message responds to our concerns, as voiced on this 
listserv?

I quote again:

" ...our basic goal has always been to keep INFORMS subscription prices 
reasonable while covering our operational costs, including the growing 
costs of electronic publishing. We modified our policy to address these 
concerns, and to make sure that our institutional subscribers have access 
to online volumes that were included with their subscription last year."

Errr ... we had access to pre-2001 content last year.  Not our fault that 
a policy existed at INFORMS that could not be put into practice.  We did 
not know about it.

The rest of the message refers to the development of a new archival 
product (which means you'll have to pay again if you want that pre-2001 
content, folks) and goes on at length about INFORMS, the publisher and its 
journals.

I feel that INFORMS has somewhat 'missed the point' here, or are simply 
not listening, although an off-list communication implies that the whole 
rolling archive policy may be up for a rethink.

(Did I cover everything?)

Best wishes all
Louise

Louise Cole
E-resources Team Leader
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT

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Tel: 0113 34 35502
Fax: 0113 34 34381

co-owner lis-e-journals