With the news today that The Christian Science Monitor is moving away from their traditional print-based platform to an online-only daily version (and a weekly print magazine),I’m wondering how archives and libraries who currently receive this and similar paper publications are planning to keep these digital representations long-term. I know that there are other small publications out there that have gone to a web-only presence–how are the articles being stored for long-term access and use? Are they being stored at all for research use? (I’m not thinking just of the CSMonitor here,but of local,small papers without a national readership). How is the information organized (content management system,I’m guessing) and is it commercially available (and viable) for other institutions who wish to purchase or license access to materials? Do you know of small (or large) papers that have gone this route with success? Are they charging an arm and a leg for access to their stored material?
Announcement by The Christian Science Monitor
Most of the time,to keep them long-term in digital format a library has to pay a continual fee. I worked in a library once that decided to cut back on journal subscriptions and these included some digital subscriptions. The way the standard contract read the library had to “give back”and discontinue use of all digital copies paid for previously. So instead of having 1940s through 1995 in print and 1995 to 2005 in digital form,they just had 1940s through 1995 in print with no digital. This is a big problem libraries still have to address.
I agree–I think that libraries need to address this,and I think also that librarians don’t realize the kind of clout they have when negotiating with the vendors of these huge databases. Think about it–if a large enough group of librarians with purchasing power decided to band together and ask for some of the things that would be most useful,would they be successful in getting better terms for some of these deals? Who else is a major purchaser of these kinds of databases?
To that end,why do libraries accept that digital accessibility to these types of materials ensures one of two less-than desirable outcomes:forever-long subscription paying at potentially spiraling rates or the prospect of losing all access,even though you’d been paying faithfully for years and years? Should there be other alternatives,such as digital copies that are actually owned by the library after paying such-and-such a rate,with some type of contract?
Further,why do we buy into this for-profit model so heavily in the first place? Particularly in the wake of the latest news from the Google Books project,I’d like to see more and more institutions changing their allegiance to work with the Open Content Alliance.