The publisher just realized they can make more money by breaking off that archive and selling access separately. What’s odd is that it didn’t happen sooner! What’s bad is that they didn’t alert you.
I had another one do the same, but it was a number of years ago. When that publisher first began offering online access they included all they had available, which went way back. At that time they were just working out the platform and getting content added. However, once they had the content loaded and were more experienced with sales they realized the archive was a potential treasure chest. We got the word that with the next renewal it would only cover access for more current years and that the back file was available for purchase. Hard on the budget!
The subscriptions I bought early on didn’t say they were selling us all the back content permanently. Our only “owned” access for any online title has been the single years we actually subscribed plus the back files we purchased.
Thanks,
Mary Peters
Medical Library Manager
Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children
Dallas, TX 75219
From: LibLicense-L Discussion Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2017 12:17 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: journal archive corners-cut with no publisher change
From: "Jean-Claude Guédon" <[log in to unmask]
Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2017 14:02:36 -0400
When publishers shifted from a "sale" business model to a "licensing" business model, they also took over preservation, and access control to back files.
This is one of the ways in which libraries have been disintermediated. There others, such as collection development made moot by Big Deals, etc.
Jean-Claude Guédon
Le dimanche 17 septembre 2017 à 12:47 -0400, LIBLICENSE a écrit :
From: Xiaotian Chen <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2017 15:28:43 -0500
Journal title: Psychological Reports (0033-2941)
Publisher: Sage
Other info: subscription not through a package, lost archives of 44 years (1955-1998) with no notification
We all see loss of archives sometimes due to journal's ownership change or package change, but this one is outstanding, because my library started subscription with Sage years ago and Sage still owns it. This journal is not part of a package deal. My library has 2 Sage packages (One Premier package and one back file package), but this journal is not on the package, but rather, is through individual title subscription.
Years ago I set up in our OpenURL link resolver that our access is from 1955 (vol 1, no 1) to present. But today, a user reported that a request for a 1976 article was denied. I had a look and realized that our access now starts from 1999. That's loss of 44 years of archive.
Should there be a movement to stop publishers from doing this?
---
Xiaotian Chen
Electronic Services Librarian / Associate Professor
Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois, USA. 1-309-677-2839
http://hilltop.bradley.edu/~chen/