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A Survey of One Academic Research Library's Licenses
A perpetual access right to an electronic journal, defined as the right to permanently access licensed materials paid for during the period of a license agreement (not to be confused with the right to copy journal content solely for preservation purposes), is a concern of increasing importance to librarians as academic libraries discontinue paper subscriptions and retain electronic-only access. This paper explores the current environment for perpetual access to electronic journals. The authors report on analysis of the contracts between a large, research-level university library and 40 publishers of electronic journals, as well as ten large electronic journal aggregators. The authors seek to determine the frequency of contractual provisions for permanent access rights for the years of active subscription in the event an electronic journal contract is terminated for any cause other than breach by the licensee. Costs and formats of any granted perpetual access are considered. The paper concludes with an exploration of the potential impact of the perpetual access clauses libraries are accepting in licenses, the possible lack of continuing access, and options for addressing the situation.
Many, if not most, academic research libraries are engaged in canceling print journals for various reasons, including saving money and coping with escalating journal subscription prices, providing more immediate access to journal content, and alleviating shelving space problems.1 This cancellation raises inevitable questions for the library: whether the print journals online counterpart also will be canceled in the future to save money and whether ongoing access to subscribed content can be guaranteed.
Statement of the Problem
Faculty View
Faculty are taking note of the issue of long-term journal access. In a survey of 7,400 American university faculty members conducted in fall 2003 by the nonprofit Ithaka, "three-fourths said ajournai should ensure that its archives will be preserved indefinitely" and "Eighty-four percent of the survey respondents said that archiving of electronic resources was very important to them."2 This finding suggests that faculty do care about the long-term availability of electronic journals (e-journals). The survey also echoes the findings of a study commissioned by the Journal Storage (JSTOR) Project in 2000, in which more than 4,000 faculty members at American universities were anonymously surveyed about their use of electronic...