Re: Comments about Nature

[David Goodman <dgoodman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>]

In my comments on Friday about Nature's statement in the Mar 1 LJ Academic
Newswire I seem to have missed their most obvious fallacy:

> "...During 1999 and 2000 we carried out extensive
> market research amongst our 48,000-plus personal
> subscribers," says Sar. "The response from the subscribers
> was, that [since] all of them have online access to all
> content at no additional charge, and certainly well ahead
> of receipt of their paper copies in most cases, they
> primarily use their library copies for archival research.
> In fact there was almost no personal subscriber who said
> they used the library copy for the news section."

Of course the personal subscribers didn't use the library copy for the
news section, or for anything else in the current issues. They have their
personal subscriptions. Of course they used the library copy for archival
access, before the online portion began.

It is certainly true that if everyone in the university had a personal
online subscription, there would be no need for a online site license. But
not everyone does, or can afford to. Providing that sort of access is what
the library site license is for.

 -- 
 David Goodman
 Biology Librarian
 and Co-chair, Electronic Journals Task force
 Princeton University Library
 Princeton, NJ 08544-0001
 phone: 609-258-3235
 fax: 609-258-2627
 e-mail: dgoodman@princeton.edu