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Re: UMI's Image Removal 

We at JSTOR have been interested in the recent thread started by Ramya 
Subramanian concerning the changing content available in the products 
of various database providers.  It is true that no one can require 
that a publisher or scholarly association permit current content to 
forever be a part of a given provider's electronic database; some 
change may be inevitable.  As an organization committed to providing 
libraries with a trusted archive of electronic materials this is a 
problem JSTOR had to address from inception, and I thought the readers 
of liblicense might be interested in how we handled it.  
     
As part of our agreements with the publishers participating in JSTOR 
we obtain a perpetual license such that the back files of those titles 
will always be available through JSTOR.  That is, if a publisher were 
to drop out of JSTOR, it has agreed with us a priori that the back 
files of its title will remain accessible to all those libraries that 
have signed on to participate in JSTOR as of the date of the 
publisher's termination.  The effect of the termination would be 
twofold: no *new* library participants would have access to that 
title, and the archive of the title would stop as of the date of the 
publisher's termination and would not continue to grow forward.  
     
While it is impossible to guarantee everything, such as that each 
publisher will continue to publish its journal or that publishers will 
not decide to terminate agreements, we are working hard to create 
mutually beneficial relationships with publishers, and are optimistic 
that publishers will remain JSTOR participants into the future.  In 
the meantime, libraries who participate in JSTOR can be assured that 
JSTOR has the necessary permissions to keep the archival issues of the 
titles accessible in perpetuity.
     
Sarah E. Sully
General Counsel
Director of Publisher Relations
JSTOR 
188 Madison Avenue
New York, NY  10016
tel: (212) 592-7345
fax: (212) 592-7355


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