RE: Roundtable Press Release (Access to Research Results)

[Jim Stemper <stemp003@umn.edu>]

On Wed, 20 Jan 2010, Todd Puccio wrote:

*****

B.  On the topic of researchers not being able to afford access 
to articles, two points come to my mind.

1.If a particular article is known, how often is it unavailable 
through Inter-Library Loan ? ILL is very quick these days and 
much less expensive than an entire journal subscription.

2.The idea that an institution can afford to have expensive 
journal subscriptions in its collection is part of what makes for 
healthy institutional competition. No ?  [...] Institutions with 
less resources still have access to ILL services.

*****

As more academic libraries move to electronic-only journal 
subscriptions to save money and space, licenses often prohibit 
the use of the electronic source for interlibrary loan services. 
So we may soon end up with institutional silos unable to ILL for 
each other from their e-only collections.  Publishers 
conveniently ignore this fact when saying "There is no access 
problem, and thus no need for federally mandated OA."

Jim Stemper
University of Minnesota Libraries
Minneapolis, MN  55455
stemp003@tc.umn.edu