RE: If electronic is to replace paper

["Somers, Michael" <msomers@email.uncc.edu>]

Some very good ideas have been expressed.  However, why are libraries now
advocating publishers or disinterested third parties archive electronic
journals?  Libraries need to, in my opinion, archive and maintain access
to the electronic journals they have subscribed to.  If we consider the
electronic version optimal choice for our users, then we must learn how to
manage them in perpetuity.  Personally, I do not believe libraries need to
pay vendors, publishers, or others a fee to refresh the data or the
technology.  Again, once libraries have paid for the subscription, the
artifact should be ours.

Sorry to be ornery, but an electronic version does not have to be an
equivalent of the print version.  Advertisements, certain types of
announcements such as calls for papers, conference dates, etc. and other
parts of a print journal do not need to be included in the electronic
version.  I do not think it is necessary to continue the same paradigm in
the electronic versions as have been used in the print.  Certainly, links
and enriched contents need to be continued and promoted, but more
importantly are the need for helpful navigation tools and the ability to
quickly return to one's starting point, without having to backtrack
endlessly.

___

> If electronic is to replace paper we need acceptable pricing and
> standards.
> 
> To quote David Sommers, I think the basic financial pricing model most
> librarians would like to see are:
> 
> > 1.    separate pricing by individual title and format.  
> 
> > 2.    sufficient differential between electronic and print 
> > pricing to offer clear incentives to transfer format, even allowing for
> > VAT factor (where applicable).
> 
> > 3.    if we absolutely must have packages of titles, they 
> > should be bundled by subject - not publisher - and should permit
> > cancellations of hard-copy.
> 
> (I applaud the idea of packages by discipline, which I have not yet seen
> offered!)
> 
> Besides appropriate pricing that encourages the switch, if electronic is
> to
> replace paper, the necessary conditions  (besides the basic standard
> terms)
> are: 
> 
> A. Redundant adequate servers, with guaranteed up-time (99.5% ? -- that's
> 1 hr a week) and response time (Clicking on journal name to displaying
> article titles in the current issue: 10 sec., article to pdf page view: 10
> sec?. Obviously, local conditions must be optimal for this, but I was just
> able to reproducibly achieve both times for at least two different
> publishers.)
> 
> B. Guaranteed access to the years purchased if the subscription is
> subsequently canceled.
> 
> C. Permanent archiving, forever, by the publisher or acceptable third
> party, with backup provisions to deal with the inability of the archiving
> organization to continue.  In particular, if permanent archiving is
> guaranteed by the publisher, there must be a designated acceptable
> organization to which the rights will be transferred if the publisher
> cannot continue.
> 
> D. Ability to use for interlibrary loan, paper, fax, or electronic,
> subject to the current provisions of copyright law for paper copies,
> including the COG limitations and CCC payments.  It is appropriate to
> require that a permanent copy not be stored, paper or electronic. (It
> would also be acceptable to require electronic transmittal to be made via
> a non-digital intermediate medium, e.g. printing a copy and scanning it. )
> 
> E. Access to any authorized library user in the libraries, without
> password or required identification.
> 
> F. Access to the entire organization's own user community anywhere on
> campus without personal identification or password, and by proxy server or
> password from anywhere in the world
> 
> AND, most importantly:
> 
> G. The electronic version must contain at least the full complete cover to
> cover equivalent of the printed journal in page image format via pdf or
> equivalent. Note that links, searching, and enriched content when
> appropriate are now standard features; all e-journals are expected to have
> them.
> 
> A few publishers do already offer most or all of the above.  I do not
> think any library which intends a permanent collection can possible
> replace print without all of them. To the extent that ejournals are
> supplementary to print, naturally many of these conditions can be less
> rigid. But without every one of them, e-journals are in important ways
> less good than paper.
> 
> -- 
> David Goodman 
> Biology Librarian, and
> Co-Chair, Electronic Journals Task Force
> Princeton University Library 
> dgoodman@princeton.edu         http://www.princeton.edu/~biolib/
> phone: 609-258-3235            fax: 609-258-2627