From: "Pikas, Christina K." <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 08:04:41 -0400 While I agree completely with the previous posters, unfortunately I have been part of groups that have made the opposite decision. Yes: * aggregator access is very unreliable (no notice changes to coverage, mid-year) * some publisher interfaces have very sophisticated tools included that make them very attractive (I had a blog post about this some time ago and spoke to an SSP meeting about what's worth paying for) * embargoes are a bad thing and, depending on the field, immediate access is important But... in extremis, and many libraries are in extremis, if all of the peripheral and less used and poorer quality journals have already been cut and you are down to cutting the core. .. If you are not only cutting the core, but cutting those journals that your best customers/patrons/users and your squeaky wheels use? Yes, unfortunately, libraries will cut subscriptions and rely on access through an aggregator. A local university cut the most central journals for aggregator access because the owning department was maintaining a local copy (and other departments doing interdisciplinary work could use the embargoed database access). This is just my opinion and does not reflect any official policy of any institution I have a relationship with. Christina K Pikas Librarian The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: "Renison, Neil" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 00:28:31 +0000 Hello Bill, Answers to your questions will relate to circumstances of specific institutions; whether there is a "general view" might emerge from the responses. A local view (Research Uni. 14,000 FTE) is that we don't check what is in a database and cancel subscriptions. In our prime research areas we subscribe to the publisher's online journal because it is generally a superior service and not likely to be dropped as can happen with aggregations. One benefit of the aggregations is that these provide cheap access to journals that we probably would not subscribe to directly. At the margin, especially in areas where there are limited funds, we may decide not to subscribe to a title that we can already access in an aggregation. Embargo periods will have some influence on that decision. To turn this argument on its head, if we were to cancel an aggregation, I expect there would be very few individual subscriptions taken up to compensate. Of course if an aggregation satisfies client demands we may never get a request to subscribe. It is also true that aggregations compete for the same pot of money (as do publisher collections and packages); however our experience is that they have a modest impact on subscriptions to individual titles. What we do experience is considerable duplication of titles between aggregations plus duplication with publisher collections or individual subscriptions; but whenever I have raised the possibility that the price of an aggregation should be discounted to offset this duplication, the vendor's response is always that it would be too hard to manage. Neil Neil Renison| Librarian, Acquisitions Services Information Resources Library & Information Services Eddie Koiki Mabo Library James Cook University, Angus Smith Drive, Douglas, QLD 4811 E: [log in to unmask] W: http://www.jcu.edu.au/libcomp/ -----Original Message----- From: <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 11:48:22 +0100 If your library takes full text databases (for example, Ebscohost), is it normal practice to check what's in the database and cancel existing subscriptions to journals which are duplicated by being in the database, or to not take out new subscriptions to titles which are already in the database? Aggregators' argument, when signing publishers up, is that availability in the database will not affect existing or potential subscriptions. Anecdotally that position has been supported by a handful of librarians, generally from major research institutions. At the same time we have a similar level of directly contradictory evidence, librarians specifically saying they are cancelling a title because its now in a database, or that because it is in a database they are not going to take out a subscription. So, what is the general view on this among the academic library community: does full text inclusion in a database invite cancelling or not subscribing to a particular title, or is that simply not the case? Are there complicating factors? Or is there not a general view at all: some librarians see inclusion in a database as sufficient reason to cancel/not subscribe, others don't? Thank you, Bill Hughes Multi-Science Publishing Co Ltd