From: Sally Morris <[log in to unmask]> Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2013 16:52:48 +0100 It's not the acquisition costs which fall, it's the storage and management costs - see, for example, http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october02/montgomery/10montgomery.html which, as we've heard, constitute a significant slice of every library's budget. And I'm really surprised to hear that you don't believe that the long-term access problems are being addressed; if so, that is very disappointing. You can't really blame publishers for wanting to charge something - after all, maintaining files and providing access to them, though nothing like as costly as a print archive, is not completely cost-free - but I agree with you that it ought not to be astronomical. Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing West Sussex, UK BN13 3U Email: [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- Dear Bill and Sally-- Speaking up from the trenches where I deal with electronic content publishers every day. ..... """"It has been noted repeatedly how much these costs would fall if libraries would drop print journals entirely. Yet they don't - why not?"""""" """"""""6) fear of "loss of content" because of server problems from online journals, coupled with lack of practical knowledge about whether disparate journals/journal packages utilize backup services?""""""""" Costs fall when print is dropped???? My costs to provide access to electronic content for the same title subscriptions I have had for years, have increased exponentially in the last 5 years, recession??? not in the STM publishers vocabulary!! FEAR?? no, on the contrary, it is REALITY!!!!... I keep print subscriptions because some publishers do not provide perpetual access to PURCHASED content. Publishers will not provide access to ALREADY PAID content if a subscription for the next year has to be cancelled for budgetary reasons. When a publisher moves its content from one hosting platform to another, the receiving platform/publisher REFUSES to honor past subscription year payments for content. These three horrors are REALITY. And I could name more!!!! I am fighting with 3 publishers right now to get online access back to ALREADY PAID for content. LOCKSS and PORTICO-- doing due diligence in auditing what actual content publishers are """actually loading""" into LOCKSS and PORTICO, you would have stress attacks. If I had the print, I would not be stressing out to provide this needed, and already paid for content to my users!!! I have been doing this job for 23 years, evolving the content this library provides to users from all print to a hybrid print/electronic library, starting with my first electronic package : IDEAL journal platform from Academic Press. Folks, this publisher no longer exists, this platform no longer exists the content now is Elsevier owned and on ScienceDirect. We fought with them for 2 years in order to get our 2 years of paid for content -- 1993-1994 accessible, since the standard start date for worldwide licensed content for ScienceDirect is 1995. Want more horror stories, I have them.....Walk in my shoes!! Print should remain the standard version of record, because STM publishers are not beholden to libraries and scholars. They are not altruistic about archiving for the "greater good" of scholarship. They are beholden only to their shareholders and making profits. Kind Regards. Arta Arta Dobbs Collection Management Librarian University of Connecticut Health Center L.M. Stowe Library Farmington, CT 06034-4003 e-mail : [log in to unmask]