Study on the economic and technical evolution of the scientific ...

8. ELECTRONIC JOURNALS:
PERMANENT ACCESS
AND PRESERVATION
The electronic era has brought a major
paradigmatic change in the provision of access
to back issues of journals: in the print era,
libraries were acquiring print journals and took
in charge their preservation so that they remain
accessible to their user community in the long
term. In the digital era, libraries and their user
community are licensed online access to
electronic journals for a determined and limited
duration. Licenses govern access to different
types of data: (i) the current issues of journals;
(ii) the electronic back issues of journals, i.e.
the online back-files of born-digital journals;
and (iii) the digital archives, i.e. the digitised
versions of the back issues of printed journals.
In some cases the online backfiles are made
freely available after a number of years.
As libraries do not own electronic journals,
they cannot ensure their long-term accessibility
or their preservation for the future.
This section addresses the question of how
permanent access to and the long-term
preservation of electronic scholarly journals,
and thereby of research output, are currently
being guaranteed.
8.1. ONLINE ACCESS TO JOURNAL
BACK ISSUES
Publishers usually distinguish between back-files,
i.e. the back issues of born-digital journals,
and digital archives, i.e. the digitised version
of print journal back issues.
They are considered different products that are
sold separately, along different models and
under different provisions. They are discussed
in the two following sub-sections.
8.1.1. BORN-DIGITAL JOURNALS
Born-digital journal back-files are usually
available as of 1995-1997, when publishers
started producing electronic journals. Publishers
have a variety of models for licensing access to
their online back-files –some include access to
some or all years in their current licence fee,
some charge a separate fee, and some provide
free access to all after a certain period (Cox
and Cox, 2003). The provisions ensuring access
to the licensed material after termination of the
contract also vary across publishers.
Alternatively, as e-print archives continue to
grow, the question is raised whether they can
provide permanent access to journal articles.
A variety of models for online access
A recent survey (Cox and Cox, 2003) has shown
that out of the 149 respondents, 3% of the
publishers made their backfiles freely available
after a year or less and a further 6% after a longer
period; the 66 small not-for-profit publishers
in the survey stood out in this regard with 8%
making backfile access free immediately, 6%
after 6 months, 17% after a year, 6% in the
next subscription year, and an additional 6%
after a longer period. For example, 197 out of
the 852 journals hosted by HighWire Press
offer free back issues (and 30 offer entirely free
contents) 129 . If the delay is carefully determined
(it may differ between disciplines), providing
free access to backfiles appears not to
undermine sales.
A variety of provisions for ongoing access to
previously licensed material after termination
of the contract
Licences usually distinguish between access to
and preservation of the data after termination
of the contract. There are many variations
across contracts. After termination of the
licence or if electronic subscription to a title is
cancelled, publishers will generally provide:
• ongoing online access to the licensed
materials, either from the publisher’s site or
from a third party, generally against payment
of an annual fee 130 , calculated along differing
lines (e.g. Elsevier 131 : maintenance fee (US$
5,5000 in 2005) + variable amount calculated
on the number of full text article downloads
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