RE: Vanishing articles (was: RE: restrictive license clause)

["T Scott Plutchak" <tscott@uab.edu>]

I'll just add one comment, since Anthony has shared the document that he
and I worked up.  While I would never suggest that a publisher keep an
article online in defiance of a court order, there are very few cases in
which such an order is actually issued.  In most of the cases that I've
looked at, to the extent that I've been able to determine cause, articles
have been removed because the publisher's lawyers are worried that they
_might_ get sued.  This is a reasonable position for company lawyers to
take -- it is, after all, their job to avoid getting sued. But an excess
of caution will lead publishers to remove articles when the integrity of
the scientific record would require that they be kept, particularly in the
absence of clear-cut policies governing how retractions or removals should
be handled.

Scott

T. Scott Plutchak
Editor, Journal of the Medical Library Association
Director, Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences
University of Alabama at Birmingham
tscott@uab.edu

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Anthony Watkinson
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 5:51 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: restrictive license clause

Encouraged by Don's thoughtful comments, I am attaching a document,
which I drew up with the assistance of Scott Plutchak and, as I
remember, his approval. It was presented to various publishing
organisations with a view to an agreement on best practice, which could
be presented to IFLA but somehow it has got stuck partly because (I
suspect) that I have not chased the relevant organisations. I would be
interested to learn if it portrays good practice as far as Don is
concerned. I wholeheartedly agree that this is an important issue. I
have retained the headings to aid navigation even if a little more space
is taken up.

[SNIP]