This is not necessarily true. Let me tell you a story...or forget it,
let me make a long story short:
We had what was billed as perpetual access to about 20 titles (I shall
leave the major
publisher unnamed- they are on my blacklist as utterly unethical!!), and
we even started to change our retention format for the
print because the package we bought stated specifically that we would
have perpetual access to the titles complete archives up to the
year of cancellation. (In other words, if the publication was first
printed in 1980, and we cancelled in 2003, then we "bought"
perpetually the years 1980 - 2003, and we would have access for these
years, and only these years,  for all time, even after we cancelled
the print. This featured a huge price increase as a start up fee, but
renewals were to be more reasonable because you were just
"buying the archive of another year", since you had already "bought" the
previous years.) We thought that this was great!
But, lo and behold, the publisher must have realized that this was too
cumbersome to keep track of because two years down the road,
the publisher changed the packages available and no longer offered
"perpetual access".  Furthermore, we lost the "perpetual access"
that we did have as they would no longer honor the terms on which we had
previously renewed our subs for these titles. So now, we
only get archival access as long as we have a current online sub.

The moral of the story, or if there's one thing that we've learned
through our experience, it's that there are no guarantees in
electronic subs. Even when you think a publisher and their database are
stable, they could
be bought out by another company, and that new company does not
necessarily have to honor
the previous packages. We know, because we have had this happen also.

Renee Hijleh
Periodicals Department
William D. McIntyre Library
PO Box 5010
University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire
Eau Claire, WI  54702-5010
715-836-3306
fax: 715-836-2949

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Chisman, Janet
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 1:34 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Looking for other libraries that have eliminated
check-in

With some licenses you are paying for perpetual access so the material
really is yours.

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