From: Bernie Reilly <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 03:29:47 +0000

The situation is not as dire as it might appear -- but not as happy as
we would like it to be.

In the print era, U.S. research libraries stepped in where publishers
opted out.  Most notably the Library of Congress, by virtue of being
the U.S. federal copyright depository, accumulated vast back runs of
commercially produced magazines and trade books in the
twentieth-century, as did CRL (my organization), independent research
libraries like the New York Public Library and Linda Hall Library, and
a number of major university libraries.  Magazines preserved include
The New Yorker (NYPL), Popular Mechanics (Linda Hall Library) and even
Women's Wear Daily (CRL).  These libraries also preserved the
"serious" -- and non-serious -- work published by the trade
publishers. (The same holds true for newspapers, although many
libraries' newspaper holdings were long ago replaced with microfilm.)

This activity is based on a longstanding, if tacit, division of labor
maintained by publishers and libraries.  That arrangement is now under
duress as collections begin to outgrow the space libraries can allot
to them.  Despite scarce resources, though, there is reason for
optimism.  CRL, long a repository of trade literature retired over the
years from academic libraries, is now pooling resources with the Linda
Hall Library to preserve popular and professional scientific
literature.  And print journal archiving efforts, emerging under the
auspices of the WEST and ASERL consortia, will prevent the loss of
some non-scholarly serial literature.

On the other hand, in the electronic realm -- "not so much." As we
enter the third decade of Internet publishing, the U.S. does not yet
have electronic copyright deposit for trade publications. And as
licensed electronic access to e-books, newspapers, and other trade
publications replaces print acquisition by research libraries,
maintenance of published content is back in the publishers' court.
While Portico, CLOCKSS, Scholars Portal, and other digital
repositories focus on scholarly publications, different solutions will
have to be found for the commercial content. And these will probably
entail a new division of labor between publishers and libraries.

Bernie Reilly
CRL Global Resources
www.crl.edu


-----Original Messa
From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2012 09:47:41 -0500

You have the same situation with trade books.  There are no
preservation policies that I can detect.  I have tried to drum up
interest in this and would be interested to hear from others who are
working in this area.  We know that we don't want to lose the output
of the university presses at Harvard, Chicago, California, Georgetown
et al, but do we want to walk away from the serious work published by
Random House and HarperCollins?

Joe Esposito


On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 6:55 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2012 17:51:47 -0500
>
> So an issue of the New Yorker from this fall (the double issue Oct
> 29/Nov 5 with Mitt getting a tattoo on the cover) went missing, and we
> went to get a replacement.  Seems not to have shown up at all.  Called
> the New Yorker's subscription service number from the masthead in the
> back of the magazine and found that it can't be done.  They now retain
> only the current issue and two immediately previous and pulp
> everything else.  If you want a back issue older than that, go to the
> secondary market and good luck to you.
>
> 1.  Am I wrong that this is a big comedown in service over days of
> yore?  I understand the $$ drivers, but for a magazine as
> non-evanescent as the New Yorker, it still seems extreme.
>
> 2.  Makes me realize that while we've been focused on assuring
> preservation of and access to e-versions of serial publications, we
> may be approaching the brink of losing the old assurance of print
> preservation.  Once upon a time, lots of libraries got things in
> print, bound them carefully, cataloged them, shelved them, cared for
> them lovingly.  Loving care for print materials is no longer something
> you can count on (colleagues trying to give away books at the point of
> retirement are getting some rude awakenings around me) and when people
> switch from p- and e- to e-only, there may well be things that just
> get lost.  Reminds me a bit of the great loss of print books in the
> Catholic church in the 1960s when Latin went out and mountains of
> stuff got trashed, replaced by mimeographed booklets.  It's actually
> hard to find those old liturgical books now.  Same of the New Yorker
> in 50 years?  Or Popular Mechanics?
>
> Jim O'Donnell