Re: Libraries and archiving (Re: RE: If electronic is to replace paper)

[David Goodman <dgoodman@princeton.edu>]

I agree that it is the responsibility of librarians. Many publishers, both
commercial and society, have repeatedly demonstrated that they do not
understand the need to maintain truly permanent long-term acccess to all
published material. I assummed in my comment on this that the
"disinterested third parties" to maintain the data would be organizations
such as Jstor, Muse or OCLC, which are library-sponsored organizations.  
Additional similar alternatives should be developed, as there are obvious
archival advantages in maintaining multiple such sources. There are
publishers who are perfectly willing to sell the physical manifestation of
the source data for journmals or databases to individual libraries; some
of us have purchased such tapes or other sources. There are libraries that
would be capable of running an extensive service independently, but I
suggest that in most cases at the present state of technology this would
better be a cooperative effort. 


Rick Anderson wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Hear, hear.  Publishing and archiving are very, very different endeavors,
> and it's not fair for librarians (who have never expected publishers to
> act as an archive before) to suddenly insist that publishers do so now, in
> the electronic environment.  Getting the content out to market in a
> reasonably durable format is the publisher's job; saving the phyical or
> electronic manifestations of that content for future use is the
> librarian's.
> 
> Of course, this has ramifications for the license terms that publishers
> impose when they sell to libraries.  If publishers don't want to serve an
> archival function, then their license terms shouldn't forbid libraries
> from doing so.  SOMEBODY has to keep this stuff available to future
> readers and researchers, but far too many license agreements require
> libraries to destroy all copies of data taken from the publication or
> database during the subscription period.  If the publisher doesn't want
> to, then for crying out loud let the libraries do it.  In return,
> libraries should continue to abide by the terms of the original license
> agreement for as long as they maintain the archive.
> 
> Rick Anderson

David Goodman 
Biology Librarian, and
Co-Chair, Electronic Journals Task Force
Princeton University Library 
dgoodman@princeton.edu         http://www.princeton.edu/~biolib/
phone: 609-258-3235            fax: 609-258-2627