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[PADG:1968] Re: Fwd: [OAI-general] Publishers Removing "Content" from Aggregators
This
issue does point out the value of printed materials and the value of
inter-library loan. It is hard to remove it once it has been
printed. Digital databases we have no control over and the vendor can remove
them at will.
<FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>
Bob
Schnare
<FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Original Message-----From: Patricia P. Selinger
[mailto:pepalmer@xxxxxxx]Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2003 5:27
PMTo: padg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx: [PADG:1966] Re: Fwd:
[OAI-general] Publishers Removing "Content" from
AggregatorsI struggle with the same issues, Tyra. I
found David Gracy's chapter, "Don't Swat the Skunk: The Preservation
Imperative", in Advances in Preservation and Access (v.2) valuable to
my way of understanding preservation in the digital world. See
Advances in Preservation and Access, volume 2, edited by Barbra Buckner
Higginbotham, Learned Information, <A class=moz-txt-link-freetext
href="">Inc: Medford, NJ, 1995, p.24. CLIR's
publications at <A class=moz-txt-link-freetext
href="">http://www.clir.org also help my understanding
of this complex issue. I became aware of scholarly communication in
general through my work with Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD).
The Networked Digital Library for Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) has posted
some papers and talks on technological changes in scholarly communication at
<A class=moz-txt-link-freetext
href="">http://www.ndltd.org/help.html that
may provide additional insight."Not preserved for that user at that
time of access" is a nice way to say that paid information is not
available. It is a bone of contention between libraries and
publishers. We do not own aggregated databases and they are not
preserved locally. Publishers own copyright to the material and until
authors refuse to turn over copyright to them, this will be the way it
is. This model sets up the publisher as archivist. It also
challenges the publish/perish syndrome prevalent at most universities.
JSTOR is the only company I know actively involved in preserving electronic
journals.Managing this issue involves the entire university
infrastructure and will take some time to change traditional ways of thinking
about scholarship and research. At this time, librarians can apply
economic pressure by way of consortial agreements for pricing and
access. Librarians can also help educate teaching faculty about
how commercial publishers work these days. Many faculty do not
understand why libraries have budget problems when the digital environment was
supposed to take care of all that. They will continue to see the library
as a black hole for funds unless they understand that libraries are charged
different subscription rates than individuals, that price increases far exceed
inflation, that publishers apply absurd foreign exchange rates, and are in
fact a capitalistic enterprise, not an altruistic provider for our nation's
intellectuals.Teaching faculty are becoming more aware of this issue
as their libraries are affected by budget cuts and hard decisions must be made
as to which aggregate databases to cut. Once they see how aggreggate
databases dilute the quality of journals and drive up prices and once they see
how much they are both producer and consumer of this farce, they can be an
effective voice for change. PatriciaS. Tyra Grant
wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE
cite=""
type="cite">This issue concerns me---has it been discussed here or
elsewhere in a preservation context? If it hasn't been
discussed, I'd be interested in hearing whatever perspectives my
preservation colleagues might be willing to share. I've seen similar
messages before but this series is particularly troubling, e.g., the message
from Malcolm Hayward, Editor of Studies in the Humanities. When a
library user searches for information that was created and presumably
published but (whether the user realizes it or not) it's not there to be
found, I conclude that information has not been preserved for that user at
that time of access. And what about our ability to preserve access for
future users? How do we define preservation nowadays---especially as
it relates to this, and similar, issues? How are people managing
this topic within their libraries? Am I missing critical discussions
about this among preservation colleagues or are these discussions not
happening? Tyra Grant Head, Preservation Department Northwestern
University Library
(Forwarded from ALA/ACRL Scholarly Communications
list) -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Publishers
removing material from aggregators? Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 15:40:40
-0500 From: "Susan K. Martin" <A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E
href=""><martin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "ACRL Scholarly Communication T.F." <A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E
href=""><SCHOLCOMM@xxxxxxx>
Your help with information regarding your experience is
sought: I've received a question from an ACRL section, concerned
about the increasingly common occurrence experienced by some libraries
of aggregators losing full-text content when publishers attempt
to sell their own journals' full-text directly to libraries, and
therefore pull that content out of the aggregators' package.
Apparently CSA/Sage is an example of this. As described
by section members, they are worried that this trend creates pricing
inequities and limits access to materials, just at a time when many
if not most academic libraries are facing budget cuts. I
tried gaining additional information by doing some searching on the Web,
but wasn't terribly successful. Do any of you have experiences
with this kind of shift away from aggregators to individual
publishers, together with its ramifications for access and budgets?
Thanks! Sue Martin Visiting Program Officer for
Scholarly Communication ACRL -------- Original Message
-------- Subject: Re: Publishers removing material from aggregators?
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 18:12:47 -0800 From: "Aline Soules" <A
class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E
href=""><asoules@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "ACRL Scholarly Communication T.F." <A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E
href=""><SCHOLCOMM@xxxxxxx>
This has been going on for some time. It's not
new. The trick is to build into your contract some
reimbursement or credit on a pro-rated basis if some information
is removed (regardless of whether that decision is the
publisher's or the aggregator's). Beyond that, I'm not
sure what we can do. Complain to the publisher? Certainly,
but will it make a difference? Only if we do it "in bulk."
The trouble, in this case, is that the aggregator suffers,
although you could argue that the aggregator is like the library in
this case--taking the blame for something that happens up the line.
Eventually, however, librarians are going to have to take a
stand. If we pay for it, we should get it. If it can
no longer be provided, we should get a rebate. If the
publisher does something we don't like, we need to talk to them
about it and, ultimately, agree not to buy their product until
they provide the kind of security and service we want. I know
it sounds much simpler than it is, but I can't see how else we can
make progress. Aline Aline Soules Associate
University Librarian California State University, Hayward 25800
Carlos Bee Blvd. Hayward, CA 94542 tel. 510-885-4596
fax 510-885-2049 <A class=moz-txt-link-freetext
href="">e-mail: <A class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated
href="">asoules@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re:
Publishers removing material from aggregators? Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003
09:11:55 -0600 From: "David Wright" <A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E
href=""><Wright@xxxxxx> To: "ACRL
Scholarly Communication T.F." <A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E
href=""><SCHOLCOMM@xxxxxxx>
The vendors may suffer (I doubt it!), but those who ultimately
suffer are the students who will not have access to the
material. This will happen for at least two reasons: 1)
Students will not aggressively pursue alternate databases with different
(and sometimes clunky) interfaces when they are used to the
aggregators' interface. They want what they want fast.
2) Financial. Many libraries have no new money to tap into
to subscribe to yet another database that may have limited use
by students. We are a small university and I have a difficult
time convincing myself that the amount we are paying for some of
our specialized databases is worth it for the limited use they receive
overall. I have a hard time being gracious to the vendors (esp.
Sage) who have pulled their content from an aggregator (in our
case EBSCOhost). I will not be able to subscribe to their
content. I have no new money. Many publishers do NOT
understand how the information they publish is used by the end
user. I have a brother-in-law who is a specialty publisher of
books and journals and I had to explain to him why libraries needed to
have unlimited campus use licenses for his online
journals. He couldn't imagine why students wouldn't come to the
physical library building to use the online journals, just as they
have used print. Go figure! With the fiscal climate in many
libraries, maybe the publishers who pull their data from the
aggregators will find out that libraries really aren't able to
just pay for everything that comes down the pike. --David Wright
David A. Wright Library Director Leland Speed
Library/Mississippi College P.O. Box 4047 Clinton MS
39058 Voice 601.925.3438 Fax 601.925.3435 <A
class=moz-txt-link-freetext href="">E-mail: <A
class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated
href="">wright@xxxxxx "Consider the
lilies." -------- Original Message -------- Subject:
RE: Publishers removing material from aggregators? Date: Wed, 19 Mar
2003 09:41:32 -0600 From: "Fyffe, Richard" <A
class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E
href=""><rfyffe@xxxxxx> To: "ACRL
Scholarly Communication T.F." <A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E
href=""><SCHOLCOMM@xxxxxxx>
There have been several cases of content disappearing.
In addition to the Sage titles, I believe that Harvard Business
Review moved from having a relationship with multiple aggregators to
an exclusive relationship with Ebsco (is that still in effect?),
and the content changes in Academic Universe have been dizzying.
I think David and Aline make good points -- particularly
the reminder that libraries should include a clause in their
contracts with aggregators that loss of content above a certain
threshold should trigger a rebate, and the observation that
publishers often don't understand how their products are used or the
consequences of choosing one or another distribution channel. We
need to work with publishers to help them understand these things better.
But as Aline notes, we need to remember that the
aggregators are in a position similar to that of libraries: they
are mediators with little control over the first-party
publishers whose content they distribute. Libraries can't control the
content interruption when a publisher's server goes down, and
it's important for our users (faculty, especially) to better
understand the risks inherent in our network structure.
Similarly, aggregators can't fully control the business decisions made
by their suppliers. As long as scholarly information is treated as a
market commodity we will face these vagaries and need to
understand them as risks. Another argument for open-access models in
which the revenue stream is independent of subscription ...
-- Richard
---------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Fyffe Assistant Dean of Libraries for Scholarly
Communication University of Kansas 502 Watson Library 1425
Jayhawk Blvd. Lawrence, KS 66045 Voice: (785) 864-4611 Fax:
(785) 864-5311 Email: <A class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated
href="">rfyffe@xxxxxx --------
Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Publishers removing material
from aggregators? Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 13:00:30 -0500 From:
"Malcolm Hayward" <A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E
href=""><mhayward@xxxxxxx> To: "ACRL
Scholarly Communication T.F." <A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E
href=""><SCHOLCOMM@xxxxxxx> If a
journal editor/publisher can add something (a small but I think
pretty good scholarly journal, Studies in the Humanities), from
our end the whole issue is filled with unknowns. If we sign with
Ebsco, or Gale, or anyone, how much do we charge? If we are
online with one of these aggregators, will that spell the end of
our subscriptions for printed copies of the journal? (I would
REALLY like some feedback on THAT one.) Should we go entirely
online? Such are the questions often raised on EDITOR-L, and as
far as I can tell, no one has come close to a definitive answer.
And the fear of giving over our publication operations, to some
extent, to an aggregator is in no small part a thinking about
the future. Say Ebsco or some other major provider goes
bankrupt. Can't happen? Bet it can. Then what happens to the
distribution system for scholarly communication? I will keep printing
copies on actual paper for as long as I can, but what's coming? ...
Malcolm Hayward, Editor Studies in the Humanities
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Publishers
removing material from aggregators?]] Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 21:17:10
-0800 From: Julia Gelfand <A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E
href=""><jgelfand@xxxxxxx> To: "ACRL
Scholarly Communication T.F." <A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E
href=""><SCHOLCOMM@xxxxxxx> My
experience in recent years mirrors exactly what has been described - the
newspapers were the first to do this, originally contributing content
to packages and now moreorless requiring individual subscriptions to
each newspaper archive. Lexis-Nexis is infamous for changing
content and extent of backfiles; the Gale Group is also notorious for
not offering full coverage of many issues that they index. Thus,
the story about selective content is not a new one. Monitoring
the shifts is labor intensive at times of severe shortages where staff
is already performing a range of duties. Information providers
are becoming far more multifunctional than just serving as a mount for
databases, or as a serials vendor. Serving as an aggregator
suggests that they provide a range of services confusing customers
about what they do best. I think that previous commentators are
totally correct when they suggest libraries may want to educate their
user populations about the network structure of how we get information
and the different models of syndication and aggregation. The
Sage effort to offer packages of up to 20 year revolving backfiles of
their journal collections in specified fields, where a subscriber does
not have perpetual access is problematic to me. Libraries want
online access for a variety of reasons - searching, linking from
databases, user preferences, space planning, etc. However,
annual payments for backfiles seems redundant. Taylor
& Francis is also changing its course for fulltext access to its
extended family of publications. From offering several options,
via Ingenta, etc, now T&F and its entire list is moving to
MetaPress, a division of EBSCO, which has hosted some T&F content
for quite a while and more is migrating. I have also just
learned that MetaPress is also working with Springer and will be the
new host of Springer Link. See <A class=moz-txt-link-freetext
href="">http://www.ebscoppf.com/metapress.asp
Learning to cope with even greater dosages of ambiguity appears to
be our natural lifestyle these days. How successful libraries
will be in influencing publishers remains to be seen. But I
think that there is work to be done here. To complicate things
further, we are seeing professional societies increase subscription
fees for online access by 75% (AAAS for Science Online in 2003) trying
to offset reduction in membership by raising institutional
subscriptions to maintain the revenue streams. This to me is a more
fundamental problem related to scholarly communication and one I would
like to see addressed. Julia Gelfand UCI --
DRM is Theft! We are the Stakeholders! New Yorkers
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