The reason that online newspaper databases such as Lexis/Nexis and Proquest
Historical Newspapers
lack some images and content that are still available in the microfilm of
the New York Times has to do with the Supreme Court Tasini Decision which
ruled that publishers who allow works by freelance employees to be included
in online databases would be guilty of violating the copyright of the
freelancers.  [See comments of Richard Wiggins (excerpted below)  at
http://www.llrx.com/features/tasini.htm]

"The National Writers Union and its supporters enjoyed a brief period of
euphoria after the Supreme Court ruled in the case of New York Times Co. v.
Tasini.  Tasini et al hoped that through litigation they could win
retrospective payments for freelancers who had written for the Times and
various other publishers.  But the euphoria was fleeting: the Times, having
learned that their use of freelancers’ works in online databases such as
LexisNexis violated the copyright of the authors, ordered databases to
remove the freelancers’ works from the archives."

Anne Benham
Alderman Library
University of Virginia
apb4n@virginia.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--On Tuesday, November 14, 2006 3:58 PM -0500 Cheng-Yee Wang
<wangc1@SCRANTON.EDU> wrote:

> Our situation is exactly the same as Sandy's.  We are still subscribing
> to both Wall Street Journal and the New York times microfilms.  The
> Reference Librarians wouldn't agree to cancel them.  The reason is the
> same that they feel the online doesn't have all the content or image as
> the microfilm does.
>
> Jane
>
> Sandy Beehler wrote:
>
>> we've considered cancelling the NYT microfilm, which costs $5000 a
>> year, but even after I did a 3 month use study that showed very little
>> use of the film, the selectors wouldn't agree to cancel it.   The
>> feeling is that the online does not have all the content that MF does.
>> sandy
>>
>> Tian Zhang wrote:
>>
>>> It is time for our library to renew our microfilm subscriptions now. I
>>> just wonder whether the other academic libraries still subscribe the
>>> microfilms of the two newspapers if they are available online from
>>> databases such as ProQuest, which the library subscribes too.
>>> I am thinking of canceling the microfilms which means we will stop the
>>> collection of these two newspapers since they published. I am not sure
>>> this is a correct decision or not. I would appreciate it very much if
>>> you please share with me about your libraries decisions.
>>>
>>> Thank you.
>>> Tian X. Zhang
>>>
>>> Serials Librarian
>>> St. John's University Library
>>> 8000 Utopia Parkway
>>> Queens, NY 11439
>>> Tel. 718 990-5082
>>> fax. 718 990-5938
>>>
>>>
>>
>>

Anne Benham
Alderman Library Periodicals/Microforms
University of Virginia
apb4n@virginia.edu