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