RE: Tempestuous Arguments

["Peter V. Picerno" <ppicerno@utmem.edu>]

The analysis of different aggregators and their relationship with
publishers and embargos has been highly informative, and Mr. Brooks' last
posting begins to steer us towards a discussion which I think this group
would be able to do well and which would have much import on publishers as
well as aggregators.

Some of the questions I would like to see addressed are:

1. What impact does the practice of embargoed content have on subscription
decisions? Does the fact that one is purchasing a less-than-current
product reflect on its usefulness and does this influence whether one's
institution sees this currency of content as enough of a problem to
question the validity of its subscription?

2. If one is paying full price for a title which is not embargoed,
conversely, should one feel that it is fair of a publisher and or
aggregator to ask a full price for a title which has an embargo in the
case of journals which appear in more than one aggregator's list?

3. While the entire matter of embargoed information is quite legal, it is
quite ethical, and how does this practice reflect on publishers who,
obviously, seem to be willing to withhold current information except to
the highest bidder?

Translating these questions into more practical terms: if I know that I
can get Journal X from aggregator Y at price Z with current information in
it, does aggregator A have the 'right' to charge the same price for
Journal X when the content will be six months delayed? How would this
situation affect my subscription decisions, how does this situation
reflect my regard for Journal X, its publisher, and, indeed, the impact of
its content? We've heard an enlightening discussion of embargoed
information from the aggregator's side, but, the consumer has been
strangely silent on this issue so far. I hope that all parties in this
issue would be able to enter into a frank and non-threatening discussion
from which we could all learn.

Peter Picerno


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu]On Behalf Of Sam Brooks
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 5:21 PM
To: 'liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu'
Subject: RE: Tempestuous Arguments


I believe that Mr. Krumenaker used the list of what is actually loaded on
EBSCOhost as opposed to the product definitions which contain more
journals (both embargoed and not embargoed).  The EBSCO Academic Search
Premier list analyzed by Gale appears to be the one based on the product
definitions. Therefore, it includes titles which are licensed and in the
process of being loaded, but are not yet actually searchable in the
database (those that aren't loaded yet are marked with an asterisk).

It's worth pointing out that the percentage of titles with embargo is a
somewhat meaningless statistic.  A more important fact to analyze would be
the total number of peer reviewed full text journals and then break it
down to embargoed vs. no embargo.

For example, a database offering 600 peer reviewed full text journals,
with 100 of those having embargoes, has only 17% embargoed peer reviewed
full text content.  However, a database with 2200 peer reviewed full text
journals, with 1600 of those having embargoes, has 73% embargoed peer
reviewed full text content.  Does that make the database with a smaller
percentage of embargoed titles superior even though the larger database
has both more non-embargoed and more embargoed full text peer reviewed
journals? Of course not.  By that logic, the embargoed journals would have
to be worse than nothing at all.  And, what if the first database (the
smaller one with less embargoes) has a lot more journals which have been
unnaturally halted by publishers due to withdrawn rights?  Isn't it better
to have ongoing-but-delayed full text, rather than halted full text?  I
notice that a lot of vendors want to avoid that topic and focus completely
on embargoes. If librarians want to do this for EBSCO products, they are
able to do so because EBSCO clearly communicates information regarding
embargoes.

It's worth mentioning that all of those embargoed titles are either also
embargoed in our main competitors' products (such as the journal Science
which has a one year embargo in their products and our products) or they
are not available in our competitors' products at all.  Therefore,
librarians should ask themselves if they would rather have current
abstracts with embargoed-but-ongoing full text with deep backfiles or no
coverage at all (or just abstracts).  For those libraries that do
subscribe to an e-journal, our current abstracts will link to the current
full text via the e-journal subscription.  Even in those cases, the
embargoed full text can be of some value because in many cases our full
text backfile exceeds the full text backfile made available with the
e-journal subscription.

If librarians choose current access for a particular journal, rather than
embargoed access in a full text database, they can buy the e-journal.  We
encourage this and it is the ultimate goal of nearly all scholarly
publishers.  For titles embargoed in a database, if the library can't or
won't buy the e-journal, the options are as follows:

1.) Current indexing and abstracts, ongoing-but-delayed full text with
cumulative backfiles
2.) Current indexing and abstracts, halted full text
3.) Current indexing and abstracts, no full text

For all of the journals we provide with full text embargo periods, our
competitors have the same embargo as well, or, they offer option #2 or
option #3 above.  For example, both EBSCO and its competitors provide
current indexing and abstracts for one of the top three religion journals.
However, in addition to that coverage, EBSCO will also be providing
ongoing-but-delayed full text with PDF backfiles expanded to 1975.  The
publisher will not license the journal to a full text database vendor
without an embargo.  Which is superior?  Each librarian will need to make
that decision on their own.

Finally, I think it's important to note that EBSCO licenses more peer
reviewed journals with NO embargo and ongoing content than either of our
main competitors.  If others claim this is not true, it is either because
they are counting halted titles in their numbers ("it's halted, but it has
no embargo"), or, because they are not yet observing the embargo imposed
by a few publishers who publish a large number of journals available in
databases.  EBSCO has been assured by these publishers that these
aggregators have the same terms as we do and will therefore need to apply
the embargoes ASAP.  These publishers do not want to be named and drawn
into the perceived bad publicity of these listserv messages, so as a
partner with the goal of a continued long-term relationship, we will honor
their requests.  But, alert librarians will figure out who they are in the
Fall when the embargoes appear on competing products too.

Sam Brooks
Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing
EBSCO Information Services

-----Original Message-----
From:	William Sampson [mailto:William.Sampson@galegroup.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, July 25, 2001 11:48 AM
To:	'liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu'
Subject:	RE: Tempestuous Arguments

To help clarify the issue, the question I'm hoping Mr. Krumenaker can
answer is how a subset of Ebsco Host (Academic Search Premier) can have
over 675 more embargoed titles than the entire whole of Ebsco Host, which,
according to his studies, has 932 embargoed titles.

My intent is not to question ulterior motives - it is only to clarify the
facts.

William A. Sampson
The Gale Group
Copyright & Licensing