From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 00:42:23 +0000

>Thanks for responding Rick.  I wonder how far you've worked  through
>the cultural changes implied of the library and the campus?
>
>BI  and article provision become much more complex, as the question
>isn't do we have access from a bibliographic database to a
>subscription.It is not as if a good open url resolver can tell you
>where to find an green OA article version. The normal alternative  is
>ILL if there's' no version  immediately available to the user.

<major snippage>

Chuck, the thing about most of these questions is that they apply equally
to any program of journal cancellations, regardless of the impetus for
them. And as you know, we have to cancel journals all the time. It will be
no harder or more complex to provide access to the content of a canceled
Green journal than it is to provide access to the content of any other
canceled (or never-subscribed) journal.

Except, of course, for the fact that if the journal was canceled because
it was Green, then that implies the availability of a free version of most
(or all) of its articles. So here's what I think would make sense: we
change our ILL/docdel request form so that it includes a brief explanation
of OA repositories and asks the question "Will you be satisfied with a
repository version of this article, knowing that it may not be the version
of record? Accepting an OA version of this article will help us keep more
funds in reserve for journal subscriptions." (There's your BI, scalable
and provided in real time.) If the requester says yes, then our first step
would be to search for a deposited copy before proceeding with the normal
ILL/docdel process. If the requester says no, then we would proceed the
same way we do with any other article request. And if we find ourselves
purchasing versions of record from a particular Green journal so
frequently that we'd save money by subscribing, then of course we would
subscribe, just as we do now with non-OA journals.

An added benefit to this approach would be that by asking our patrons to
express a willingness (or lack thereof) to accept deposited versions, we'd
gather very valuable data. I would imagine that in some cases it matters
to our patrons a lot, and in some cases it doesn't -- but seeing the
pattern of preference in real-world terms would be very interesting and
useful (and would provide the basis for a really great article).

This all points up one of the very nice things about journal cancellation:
it's eminently reversible.

---
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Scholarly Resources & Collections
Marriott Library, University of Utah
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