Society Journal Publishing Transfer: Transition Guidelines

["Woodward, Hazel" <hazel.woodward@cranfield.ac.uk>]

**Apologies for cross posting**

Society publishing: Problems Resulting from Journals Transferring 
Between Publishers. Guidelines to Help Achieve a Successful 
Transition.

Each year significant numbers of journal titles are transferred 
to different publishers and often this is as a result of learned 
and professional societies making decisions to switch from one 
publishing partner to another, or to relinquish their in-house 
publishing arrangements. It is estimated that some 3400 scholarly 
and research titles have transferred between publishers since the 
beginning of 2009.

A frequent unintended consequence of these transfers however, is 
a range of practical problems for both libraries and scholars. 
These problems can include:

*Readers experiencing loss of access (temporary or fairly 
lengthy) to key society journal content, at the start of the new 
subscription year.

*Libraries facing new or different pricing models and 
unexpectedly high subscription price increases.

*Insufficient information being sent to librarians about the 
transfers, leaving librarians unclear about a number of issues, 
for example, the timing of the transfers, ongoing access 
arrangements, detailed information on titles that are covered.

*Uncertainty amongst librarians about arrangements for access to 
previous years of journal content, and their rights for perpetual 
access to years where subscriptions have been cancelled

In an attempt to reduce the problems, librarians and publishers 
have worked together in recent years to develop and implement the 
industry-wide TRANSFER Code of Practice 
<http://www.uksg.org/transfer>. This initiative has been 
successful in improving the situation, but problems still exist.

In order to provide further help in addressing the problem, JISC 
Collections, a key organisation in facilitating access to 
electronic information resources across UK universities and 
colleges, has now published a Guide for societies that outlines 
the nature of, and reasons for, the problems and suggests ways in 
which societies could help. This includes a checklist of key 
'transfer'issues societies could consider using in their 
discussions with publishers when exploring new publishing 
partnerships.

The Guide is available at the JISC Collections website:

http://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/jtransferpaper

Kind regards

Lorraine Estelle
CEO
JISC Collections
Brettenham House
London WC2E 7EN