Regards,

Stella Sandy

Head, Acquisitions & Continuing Resources

The Alma Jordan Library

The University of the West Indies

St. Augustine Campus

Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.

Tel: (868) 662 2002 Ext. 82126

Email: stella.sandy@sta.uwi.edu

URL: https://libraries.sta.uwi.edu/ajl/

I have been waiting for this to appear on some of the listservs but haven't seen it mentioned yet. So, I'm taking the bull by the horns.

After Taylor and Francis' 20 year moving wall backfile was announced many of the North American (and some overseas) consortia decided to contact T&F and register 

disappointment and unhappiness

with the decision. A meeting was requested with Taylor and Francis at ALA Annual in New Orleans.  That meeting was held the Sunday of

Annual and was attended by a large cross-section of the combined, concerned consortia and their members.  It was a lively discussion (to say the least).  

ANYWAY-last week, the consortia received a letter from Christoph Chesher, Taylor and Francis' Group Sales Director

Taylor and Francis has come to understand that this decision was extremely problematic for libraries and is now restoring access back to 1997 for current subscription customers "with immediate effect and the foreseeable future."  Please note that this decision only affects customers in the U.S. and Canada only [emphasis is mine].

I understand this is being communicated by the T&F sales managers. If you are a U.S. or Canadian customer and have not received this notification, I would urge you to contact your sales manager.  

Below is a [cut-and-past] section of the letter received by one of the consortium's who protested this policy.

In 2017 Taylor & Francis announced a Rolling Wall Policy with a provision of 20 years’ courtesy access as part of its base terms applicable to current subscription customers.  It remains our view that 20 years’ courtesy back access is more competitive than the base terms offered on current subscriptions by many of our competitors, and we would urge our customers to check and verify this with their subscription agent.  
 
Nevertheless, listening to the feedback from our customers we have come to understand that many find a date for courtesy access that moves annually to be problematic, to be one that some find involves additional work in implementation at their end, and one that they feel involves uncertainty of access amongst their patrons.  
 
Notwithstanding the caveat that Taylor & Francis reserves the right to change its terms on offers to customers from time to time, we are therefore restoring courtesy access back to 1997 to current subscription customers in the USA and Canada with immediate effect and for the foreseeable future.  We acknowledge that this issue has strained our relationship with some of our customers over the past few months, and we are committed to working with them to rebuild the excellent relationships that we have previously prided ourselves upon.     We are communicating this change with all customers in the US and Canada either directly or via email over the next few days. It may then take us some time to implement the necessary changes to libraries’ access. We will communicate with customers as their 1997 access is reactivated.  
 

We will also work with link resolver vendors to ensure they have the necessary data to keep library catalogs updated.  ****************************************************************************************