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Access: As Good as Ownership?
Unless you’re Halliburton, Bechtel, or an oil company, things
are tough all over. Higher education may not be in nearly as dire
a strait as Iraq, but it’s not uncommon these days to encounter
a sort of bunker attitude on college campuses, with academics hunkering
down and making do until the worst is over. One strategy university
libraries have utilized to partially mitigate the precipitous cuts
in acquisitions budgets during inflationary times is to form consortia
to purchase databases containing full texts of articles from many
journals.
“Great,” you may say. “Isn’t access as good
as ownership?” In a word, no. Some stand-alone electronic
journals resemble their print equivalents, providing all the usual
content (all articles and news items, letters, illustrations, information
about the journal, and context) plus the advantages of online environments
such as electronic links: 24/7 availability, subject searching within
the journal, and the ability to copy, e-mail, and cut-and-paste
from articles (properly cited, of course). Nova Religio
is one of many good examples. Others just aren’t the same
online. In recognition of this fact, Meriam Library is re-subscribing
to the printed version of National Geographic and Scientific
American.
Unfortunately, many periodical and journal databases selectively
include only some articles without the other features of printed
editions; new issues of some titles may be embargoed for up to a
year to encourage print subscriptions; and journals may be dropped
from the database at any time, the old bait and switch. The latest
example of the latter is an “E tu, Brute?” from another
university: Duke has dropped 18 of the fine journals it produces
from the joint effort of Project Muse. Duke seems to think they’re
giving Muse participants a big break by charging them only the 16
percent of the Muse subscription price accounted for by Duke journals,
but do you really suppose that Muse will drop its prices to make
up the difference? If so, ahh, Grasshopper, I’d like to offer
you a 16 percent break on the prevailing interest rate for access
to a new home. Isn’t that just as good as ownership?
—Jim Dwyer, Meriam Library, Bibliographic Services
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Volume 35/Number 3
