We've incited a riot!

A few months back, I asked my helpful and talented graduate assistant Laura to start working on a spreadsheet that would outline the standard access models offered by various publishers to whose content we subscribe. The intent was to have some basic information available about possible future access to help us decide whether to go e-only for a particular journal title. We realized that these licenses change a lot, but if a publisher clearly stated that they would only keep, say, a 10-year backfile, and that they didn't have an agreement with any of the archiving organizations, and the journal was a core journal in the field, then we would be hesitant to drop the print. The pressure to go e-only is strong, though, and budgets are limited, so we're still dropping many titles in print even if they don't offer any kind of perpetual access or archiving.

Anyway, a couple of days ago, this message was posted to the Electronic Resources in Libraries listserv:

We are gearing up to convert print and print + electronic journals to electronic-only. In discussions the same questions keep coming up:

· Is the full-text a complete copy of the printed issue?
· Does the publisher provide perpetual access to subscribed volumes after cancellation?
· Is the publisher part of an initiative to guarantee long-term access (CLOCKSS, Portico, etc.)?

Those are pretty much questions we all ask when faced with this situation. I was wondering if anyone has compiled a list of answers for publishers that we can use and build on for our own collections? I would hate to reinvent the wheel if someone else has done the work.

Laura innocently posted that she would be happy to share the document that she had compiled and a firestorm ensued. Dozens of messages were posted to the list asking for a copy. Even more messages were sent directly to Laura. Clearly, this is information that people need! Bonnie Tijerina at Georgia Tech suggested that we set up a wiki for this on the ER&L site, and shortly after we announced that was in the works, we were blogged about.

More on this to come. I have to get to work on the wiki now. What a crazy end to the week!