Re[2]: The new Science site license

[mspinell@aaas.org (MSPINELL)]

Rick,
     
Here at Science, we're not surprised when librarians raise the archiving
question. It's an important one that will effect everyone: publishers,
libraries, and scholars. It definitely needs a resolution sooner rather
than later. Your comment makes it seem as if the archiving problem is
really quite simple to solve, if only those pesky publishers wouldn't be
so finicky about copyright rules. But are we really the problem?
     
I'm not an archivist, so please forgive if this is a naive response: I
don't see how your proposed solution helps at all. First, as I understand
the problem, archiving online journals is considered difficult partly
because of their dynamism and their integration through hyperlinking to
many other sites and documents online. This is one reason, I assume, that
retaining print subscriptions is not considered adequate.
     
Second, and in the short run more important, how would you save money by
printing it all out yourself? To the extent that a print copy IS adequate,
I'm pretty sure you'd be far better off economically just keeping print
Science, rather than wasting time and money trying to print out the whole
site. The cheapest paper you could put through your printer must surely
cost more than the pages of a bulk printed magazine, no?
     
By the way, for Science Online, that would be a daily, not a weekly,
printing chore, since some new online content appears every day. Maybe you
could save some money for certain journals whose subscription costs are
very high. Science in print only costs $295 per year right now, less than
half the ALA's reported average cost for Life Science journals, and less
than a quarter the cost reported for Chemistry/Physics journals. I doubt
you could print it out cheaper than that, even if you only printed the
research and news articles.
     
Of course, I realize retaining print Science is still not an adequate
solution to archiving the Science Online product. For example, it wouldn't
give you a printed archive of the ScienceNOW daily articles. But that's
the whole archiving problem with online journals referenced above. We're
not being belligerent or cavalier about the archiving problem. It is a
tough problem to solve, publishers don't really have this in their
background - librarians do. If it were as simple as relaxing the copying
rules for libraries, I don't think there would be an archiving problem.
     
     Mike Spinella
     AAAS, Science magazine
     


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: The new Science site license
Author:  Rick Anderson <rick_anderson@uncg.edu> at Internet
Date:    10/6/98 7:07 PM


Says David Goodman:
     
>In my view, for a publisher to offer libraries a one year window would 
>only be appropriate for access to an electronic version supplied without 
>extra cost, as a bonus for the print subscribers.  I think most of us 
>would not pay for access to the current year only of a print journal.
     
Say I:
     
Hear, hear.  And this is something I've said to a number of online 
publishers, most of whom have sounded surprised at the objection.  
Usually what I suggest to them is that we be allowed to create our own 
archival copies, at our own expense, by printing out issues as they're 
published online.  That makes the publishers very nervous, of course, 
since it smacks of "systematic copying of significant portions" of the 
content, but for them the result is essentially the same as if we had a 
paper subscription.  Otherwise, it's like having a paper subscription and 
having to send the old issues back every year.  Do they really think that 
a research library is going to be satisfied with having access to the 
information they publish for only one year at a time?
     
----------------------
Rick Anderson
Head Acquisitions Librarian
Jackson Library
UNC Greensboro
1000 Spring Garden St.
Greensboro, NC 27402-6175
PH (336) 334-5281
FX (336) 334-5399
rick_anderson@uncg.edu
http://www.uncg.edu/~r_anders
     
"History is an art -- like all the
other sciences."  
       -- Veronica Wedgwood