NEWS RELEASE

New UKSG Working Group Established to Improve Procedures for Journals
Transferring Between Publishers

Oxford, UK - April 18th 2006 - A new industry-wide group involving
librarians, publishers and agents, has been set up to improve the
procedures and policies surrounding the transfer of journals.

The annual movement of journal titles between publishers with different
publishing arrangements currently causes many headaches for librarians
who have the responsibility for maintaining seamless access for readers.
Issues which librarians confront include the uncertainty of what will
happen to their current electronic access, their URL links, their
perpetual access rights, the price of the journal, and whether or not
the journal will be included in the big deal package of the new
publisher, if indeed they have one.

With the absence of any universally agreed standards, the transfer of
journals also causes major headaches for the publishers themselves, with
inconsistent subscriber data for institutional, member, society or
consortia customers, differing ownership of backfiles, conflicting
formats, granularity of linking, and the imperative to maintain links to
the previous publishing platform.

Some work has already been done to create standards and best practice
for journal movements and other changes.  The ALPSP, for example, have
published guidance for society publishers, to be found at:
http://www.alpsp.org/socjourn1.pdf <http://www.alpsp.org/socjourn1.pdf>

The purpose of this Working Group, provisionally called TRANSFER and set
up under the auspices of the United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG -
www.uksg.org.), is to create a Code of Practice for the transfer of
journal titles between publishers.  Publishers that adhere to the Code
of Practice could become 'compliant' in much the same way as the COUNTER
logo is displayed by publishers and vendors compliant with the COUNTER
Code of Practice.  The goal is to ensure that the transfer of journals
between compliant vendors, and, in time, all vendors, follows agreed
standards which will reduce the administrative load for librarians and
ensure seamless access.  In all aspects the Group must be considerate of
anti-trust and anti-competition rules.

The first meeting of the UKSG Working Group was held in Oxford, UK, on
March 30th, 2006.

Proposed members of the Group include:

Nancy Buckley, Chair (Blackwell Publishing)

Louise Cole (University of Leeds)

Jo Connolly (Swets Information Services)

Helen Crook (Sage Publications Ltd)

Nick Evans (Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers)

Paul Harwood (Content Complete Ltd)

Helen Henderson (Ringgold e-Marketing Services)

Alison Mitchell (Nature Publishing Group)

Ed Pentz (CrossRef)

Jill Taylor-Roe (University of Newcastle upon Tyne)

If you would like more information about the Group, please contact:
Nancy.Buckley@oxon.blackwellpublishing.com

Media Contact:

Emily Gillingham

Blackwell Publishing, Oxford

Tel: +44 (0)1865 476425

Emily.Gillingham@oxon.blackwellpublishing.com

www.uksg.org/

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