Peter,

as this might give a false impression, please forgive me if I have to
insist that the message posted was forwarded from the Reed Elsevier
Customers mailing list (as well as liblicense-l and slapam-l) and the
original subject was "A Commitment to Electronic Archiving - how
Elsevier ensure that you'll loose 5 years of back files -- unless you
sign the "big deal".

Your headline raises expectations we might not be able to fulfill. We
still have to see how many or few Elsevier journals will survive our
planned cancellations or be added back after faculty evaluation of our
present journal holdings and consideration of wishes for new titles
(independent of publisher). Of course, we'll have to stay in budget and
the outcome will depend on the perceived value of different journals.
Certainly there will be many journals where it will be decided that we
may do without a subscription and can rely on occasional ILL, Docdel or
getting a needed article directly from the author or hopefully find it
in an open archive. But there will be also heavily used journals that we
may not dispense of.

Nevertheless our library will actively pursue possibilities to move to
open-access journals and to encourage self-archiving on the campus,
either through our own OAI-compliant online publishing system, OPUS, or
established disciplinary Open Archives. However, we'll need to address
important legal questions (e.g. it seems doubtful whether Harnad's
advice to archive the "corrigenda" together with the pre-refereeing
preprint,
if the publisher does not agree to a changed copyright agree transfer
agreement, is compatible with german copyright law) and probably need to
secure funds to encourage publication in Open-Access Journals. Funds
freed up from cancellation of a number of pricey Elsevier journals would
certainly help. Another source of funds are public science foundations.
It's very encouraging that the "Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft" (DFG)
just modified their guidelines for funding publications. All funding
programs of the DFG now permit researchers to apply for publication
funds of up to 750 Eur / year and project. From 2002 on they will supply
additional funds of up to 15 Million Euro per year for that purpose.

My personal view only,

Bernd-Christoph Kaemper
Subject Specialist for Physics and Electronic Resources Librarian,
Stuttgart University Library, P.O. Box 104941, 70043 Stuttgart, Germany
Tel +49 711 685-4780, Fax +49 711 685-3502, [log in to unmask]

Peter Suber wrote:
>
> [Forwarding from Bernd-Christoph Kaemper.  --Peter.]
>
> "Permanent archiving of electronic information and assured access to those
> archives are essential in scholarly information. Elsevier Science is
> committed to maintaining an active electronic archive of its journals and
> to providing access to that archive to all subscribers"
>
>                                         [log in to unmask]
>                                 (2001 Subscription Price List, p.6)
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Subscribers to journals in the Elsevier Science Portal "Nuclear Physics
> Electronic" have received a message from Elsevier Science announcing the
> end of unconditional access to the archives of these journals for
> institutional print subscribers (see below). Only content of 1995 and
> earlier will (for some time) remain accessible on the Elsevier Server
> until those back files become available via ScienceDirect.
>
> For content published after 1995, longtime print subscribers that may have
> invested about 40,000 USD per year for the 9 journals that are part of the
> platform, are suddenly denied access to 5 years of those archives that
> were formerly included with their print subscriptions.
>
> What remains, are the usually 12 months "free" access included with all
> Elsevier print subscriptions through the web editions program. If a
> scientist tries to access earlier issues, he is shown only the abstract
> and asked to check whether his institution has signed up to ScienceDirect.
>
> The announcement by Elsevier Science marks the sad end of an aera of
> former longtime archival access for physics journals on Elsevier. Last
> year already saw the same transformation of suddenly disappearing archives
> into link collections to ScienceDirect silently going on for the 15
> journals on the Elsevier Science Portal "Surfaces and Interfaces", for the
> 2 journals on Chemical Physics Physical Chemistry Online CPC Online
> (Chemical Physics and Chemical Physics Letters) and for the 18 journals in
> Elsevier's "Condensed Matter Web", and for numerous individual journal
> titles that formerly provided electronic access to several years of back
> files via the Elsevier Science Website, like Earth and Planetary Science
> Letters or Computer Physics Communications. Access to all those back files
> has been shut down for all but ScienceDirect Digital Collections
> Subscribers.
>
> For the publisher it's just streamlining its operations and luring even
> more subscribers into its ScienceDirect "Freedom Collection". However, we
> and our scientists as longtime subscribers to these journals feel deceived
> and are not willing to accept this publisher's actions without a word of
> protest.
>
> As our library, after 4 years of managing to sustain our subscriptions,
> again faces a severe cut in our acquisitions budget (almost 500,000 EUR or
> ca. 28% of our serials budget), we are now planning to cancel most if not
> all of our Elsevier Subscriptions with the end of 2002 to free up the
> necessary funds needed to continue our other subscriptions, especially to
> journals by well-known learned societies. Only after a comprehensive
> faculty evaluation of our present journal holdings as a whole (including
> consideration of titles to be added to our collections) will we reconsider
> which Elsevier journals have enough demand to warrant resubscribing
> despite their high price tags and which other journals can be cancelled
> instead.
>
> After being confronted with a sample of statistical data on cost per use
> for Elsevier journals vs. society journals and on learning that they would
> not loose any long-time archival access to formerly subscribed journals
> because Elsevier Science has already cut back access to those archives,
> our university's library advisory board unanimously decided to back up the
> library's proposal for a politically motivated "emergency decision" to
> cancel our Elsevier subscriptions. At the same time, we'll encourage
> faculty to publish in not-for-profit society and open access journals and
> to follow a consequent strategy to self-archive their refereed journal
> articles in open electronic archives. Stuttgart University library is a
> signatory to the Budapest Open Access Initiative.
>
> Bernd-Christoph Kaemper
> Subject Specialist for Physics and Electronic Resources Librarian,
> Stuttgart University Library, P.O. Box 104941, 70043 Stuttgart, Germany
> Tel +49 711 685-4780, Fax +49 711 685-3502, [log in to unmask]
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Access to Nuclear Physics Electronic
> Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 04:49:48 -0500
> From: Nuclear Physics Electronic <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>
> Dear MrKaemper,
>
> Nuclear Physics Electronic (NPE) at:
> http://www.elsevier.com/locate/npe  will have a new access model
> for articles published after 1995. Access to articles published
> before 1995 will not yet change.
>
> What has changed?
> ========================
>
> There is no longer any need to register in two places with Elsevier
> Science. If your institute subscribes to the Nuclear Physics Electronic
> titles on ScienceDirect, you will have seamless access to the full text
> (in HTML and PDF) from Nuclear Physics Electronic.
>
> This means that access based on your personal reader key or on your
> "electronic access" license is no longer valid.
>
> Access via ScienceDirect
> ========================
>
> Online access to full text articles in Nuclear Physics Electronic will be
> available to those readers whose library is:
>
> 1. Subscribed to the Elsevier Science web database ScienceDirect OR
> 2. Registered with ScienceDirect Web editions and holds a
>     subscription to the print version of the journal(s) in
>     Nuclear Physics Electronic.
>
> What if you experience problems accessing the full text via Nuclear
> Physics Electronic:
>
> =================================================================
>
> This may be because your library does not hold a subscription to the print
> version of this journal or because your librarian's registration to
> ScienceDirect Web Editions is still being processed.
>
> Registering for ScienceDirect Web Editions is done using the License
> Agreement at http://www.sciencedirect.com/web-editions (via your
> librarian).
>
> Please feel free to contact us if you require additional
> information regarding these access changes.
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> Carl Schwarz
> Senior Publishing Editor
> mailto:[log in to unmask]
>
> ==^================================================================
> This email was sent to: [log in to unmask]
>
> EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84uvv.a9Q50r
> Or send an email to: [log in to unmask]
>
> T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
> http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
> ==^================================================================