RE: Is it time to stop printing journals?

["Mcsean, Tony \(ELS\)" <T.Mcsean@elsevier.com>]

Dear Christina,

Do you have the specific details of the unsatisfactory scans? 
When we are notified of something like this we rescan it and 
ensure it is usable, and if you can send me details I will set 
this in motion.

Tony McSean
Director of Library Relations
Elsevier
32 Jamestown Road
London NW1 7BY

+44 7795 960516
+44 20 7424 4242

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Pikas, Christina K.
Sent: 31 March 2007 20:19
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Is it time to stop printing journals?

No.  My users have had us ILL for copies from things we've 
recycled because we have online.  Some of the SD scans are 
horrible and the scientist can't make out the table figures. In 
fact, we've had to ILL twice for one article because the first 
came from a microfilm which was worse.  We had to track down a 
library that would photocopy the print and send it snail mail.

We have at least two generations we have to serve here so we 
still need to serve both.  My users want to scan the print 
(browse, that is), then save the electronic, and print from the 
electronic and read that copy so they can mark it.

This is all in my opinion and does not reflect the policy of my 
place of work or our management.

Christina K. Pikas, MLS
R.E. Gibson Library & Information Center The Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Laboratory

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Greg Tananbaum
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2007 7:50 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Is it time to stop printing journals?

Scott Plutchak from UAB writes in his blog response:

"We certainly don't need to keep the print to satisfy our user base. Two
years ago we stopped getting any print for our ScienceDirect titles. I
did not get a single question, comment, or expression of concern from
faculty or students.  We've reached the point where librarians tend to
worry a lot more about the print than the people who use our libraries
do."

I am curious to hear whether this is a commonly held sentiment.
In other words, do the librarians on this list have the sense that their
patrons are operating in a post-print world (not in the OA/PMC/Battle
Royale sense of the term, but meaning have we outgrown print)?  If so,
this would be a remarkable shift, and a remarkably quick one.  Certainly
when I helped launch The Berkeley Electronic Press in 2000, print was
sacrosanct.  The idea of a viable electronic-only journal publisher was
met with feedback running the wide gamut from skepticism to scorn.  If
this equation has indeed flipped in a matter of a half-dozen or so
years, this ranks as one of the most important periods in scholarly
communication history.

Best, Greg

Greg Tananbaum
gtananbaum@gmail.com
(510) 295-7504