RE: If electronic is to replace paper

[Rob Strong <rstrong@umhb.edu>]

A new wrinkle, and one for which I fail to comprehend the ramifications,
American Chemical Society offered us electronic access to a number of
titles.  We decided to subscribe to 9 of them.  They then sent pricing and
we fell into the group to whom it is most costly, because we have a
FIREWALL.  If we supplied them with all of the IP addresses we needed to
have authorized, the price was almost 50% lower than if we used the
firewall access of only one IP address.  They contend that they are then
unable to determine how many people are actually going to be granted
access, even though we could still supply them with headcount, FTE of
students and employees, and restrict off-campus access to authenticated
users.  I don't understand.  Anyone able to clue me if this is a new
trend, simply a peculiarity of ACS, or my density.

Rob Strong	
Director of Learning Resources
Townsend Memorial Library
Box 8016/900 College St
University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
Belton, TX 76513
254 2954636
254 2954642 fax
rstrong@umhb.edu

-----Original Message-----
From:	Somers, Michael [SMTP:msomers@email.uncc.edu]
Sent:	Tuesday, November 16, 1999 6:24 PM
To:	'liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu'
Subject:	RE: If electronic is to replace paper

Some very good ideas have been expressed.  However, why are libraries now
advocating publishers or disinterested third parties archive electronic
journals?  Libraries need to, in my opinion, archive and maintain access
to the electronic journals they have subscribed to.  If we consider the
electronic version optimal choice for our users, then we must learn how to
manage them in perpetuity.  Personally, I do not believe libraries need to
pay vendors, publishers, or others a fee to refresh the data or the
technology.  Again, once libraries have paid for the subscription, the
artifact should be ours.

Sorry to be ornery, but an electronic version does not have to be an
equivalent of the print version.  Advertisements, certain types of
announcements such as calls for papers, conference dates, etc. and other
parts of a print journal do not need to be included in the electronic
version.  I do not think it is necessary to continue the same paradigm in
the electronic versions as have been used in the print.  Certainly, links
and enriched contents need to be continued and promoted, but more
importantly are the need for helpful navigation tools and the ability to
quickly return to one's starting point, without having to backtrack
endlessly.