Thanks to everyone who responded to my question about how we keep back issues of the NYT.

Everyone who responded does some form of the "belts & suspenders" approach, that is, Lexis/Nexis and either the microfilm or ProQuest's Historical Newspapers database. The issue of the Tasini case is what stops most people from getting Historical Newspapers because it seems that only the microfilm is exempt, although someone I spoke with at a meeting said there may be a way around this in Historical Newspapers (read on).

I had an appointment with a  ProQuest rep last Wednesday and I asked him about this. He said that the NYT has rights to any image of the paper, and that is why microfilm is exempt. By the same rights, the image shot of the paper on Historical Newspapers is also exempt, so that if you can get that image into a photo editor and blow it up enough, you should be able to see the article. I’m skeptical, because you know happens to an image when you blow it way up.

I asked him about blank spots where the Tasini-ized article once was, and he said that if you try to retrieve a document of an article that is copyrighted, you will see the blank spot. So the advantage of Historical Newspapers is that you can at least find out that something was written in the New York Times on that topic by that author and you might be able, with that knowledge, to locate the author (maybe through copyright.com?) and pay to get the article if you really, really had to have it. We are waiting for him to get back to us with pricing for Historical Newspapers, and we'll go from there.

Why not just keep the microfilm? We are really trying to find remote access for our students and of course the microfilm doesn't do that. Lexis/Nexis leaves out a lot, and you don't even know what you're missing because they don't index material that is removed as a result of the Tasisi ruling.

Thanks again for your helpful comments.

Diane Arnold, Serials Librarian
Logue Library
Chestnut Hill College
Philadelphia, PA