I would imagine that Rick can do away with the fire-retardent apparel (it's too hot to be wearing all that gear, anyway!) since some of the concepts he expresses are worthy of consideration. I'd like to address a couple of them: Archiving has been as expressed: until the advent of e-publishing, it was the provenance of libraries. The fact of the matter remains that if it were not for the dread site-license, it could (and would) still be the provenance of libraries, except that there has been no model worked out for this. Publishers won't presently allow it. I think that part of that reason is that we, in the USA, do not have a national library which would be a very likely place for such a project to reside in terms of a funding source and a centrally accessible set of servers. Things like Project Muse and JSTOR show us a glimmer of what such a model could be, but these projects exist at institutions of higher learning and while they are both extremely valuable, they cannot begin to cover many of the bases for archiving journal literature for all disciplines and from various publishing sources, nor can their funding sources extend that far. In addition to the consideration of details such as servers, access, and such, the little detail of copyright enters into this discussion in a big way ... especially when one considers the digital copyright complications. It *would* be possible to negotiate some sort of comprimise which would permit the sort of archiving which Rick envisions, but it would mean that libraries, publishers, authors, and lawmakers would all have to drop their historically-based ideas and opinions and look towards a future which none of those groups has been prepared (or possibly even willing) to consider. In terms of ILL versus rush purchase of monographs, yes, a lot of collection development and acquisitions is based on speculative use ... but that's where skill, knowledge of collections and communities of users creates an indefinable factor which cannot be quantitatively or qualitatively expressed (well, maybe it could but it would take lots of work!). Some libraries are not allowed have instutional credit cards which makes dealing with places like B&N.com or Amazon.com next-to-impossible -- nor do those vendors have everything in print immediately available, and items which are out-of-print or which are relatively rare because of short publication runs are also difficult to get shipped rush. Rather than relying on a vendor's concept of 'rush' or on a true inability to be able to produce a desired item in a short time, ILL is one sure way of getting what the patron wants in as speedily as possible. Peter Picerno -----Original Message----- From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU]On Behalf Of Rick Anderson Sent: Monday, July 08, 2002 4:13 PM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: Re: Print vs Online I appreciate Peter's cogent and reasonable comments, and would like to add just one more of my own (hopefully as cogent and reasonable as his): > One aspect of this discussion, it seems to me, which has been omitted or > ignored though it has been implied under the rubric of 'stability of > e-formats' is the long-term access to backfiles. The advent of online journals has made the whole issue of archiving much more complex than it used to be. Ten years ago it was a given that libraries would provide the long-term archives of journal content; today, in the online realm, that role logically shifts to publishers, and there is no reason to expect that they're going to do a good job of it. After all, archiving is completely foreign to the publisher's natural role, which is to get stuff out into the marketplace and let others archive it as they see fit. But if publishers are going to sell us online access instead of print copies, they seem to have stuck themselves with the responsibility of providing a robust archive. But at the risk of alienating everyone I haven't already alienated by dissing print, I'd like to suggest that long-term archiving is neither an appropriate role for publishers nor an appropriate central mission for most libraries. I think it's time, frankly, for librarians to focus much less on the permanence of our collections and much more on developing the ability to provide current content with greater speed, ease and transparency to our patrons. This can't be equally true for all libraries of all types, of course; a deep and permanent archive is an integral part of some libraries' practical function. But contrary to our automatic professional assumptions, I don't think such is the case for most libraries, and not even for most research libraries, which are now in a situation where the ability to give people what they tell us they need is hindered by a focus on ordering, processing and storing things that we think they may need in the future. (For an example of this tendency, think about your institution's interlibrary loan policy. If it's like ours, it says to patrons "Oh, you want Book X? And we don't have it? Well, we can't bother the Acquisitions staff to rush-order a copy -- they're busy processing the approval plan shipment, which consists of books that we think may be of use to you later. So we'll see if another library has Book X and then go through the tortuous and extremely inefficient process of borrowing it from that library on your behalf. Hang on for a few weeks, and we'll get back to you.") I know this sounds crazy, but think about it: what if we could rely on a handful of institutions (either a few selected libraries or some other, as-yet-uninvented third party) to house a permanent archive of most journal content, and the rest of us were freed up to focus on improving our patrons' access to current information? We could establish a policy of rush-ordering copies of the old articles piece-by-piece as requested by patrons, and could then redirect tons of staff time to actually improving our real-time patron services instead of investing it in the massive just-in-case gamble that is our current collecting and cataloging practice. It has long seemed to me that the great unspoken scandal of our profession is not (_pax_ Albert and the BMJ) the fact that we're supporting poor research, but the fact that we spend such a huge amount of time and money on information that NO ONE EVER USES. I think we have a chance to fix that, and it seems to me that _that_ project should be of prime importance to us. (Hang on, please, while I don my flame-retardant goggles.) OK, fire at will. ------------- Rick Anderson Director of Resource Acquisition The University Libraries University of Nevada, Reno "I'm not against the modern 1664 No. Virginia St. world. I just don't think Reno, NV 89557 everything's for sale." PH (775) 784-6500 x273 -- Elvis Costello FX (775) 784-1328 rickand@unr.edu
