Preservation Concerns in the E-Resource Environment

The article by Jennifer Watson for this week talks about maintaining perpetual access to items in a collection. In the print format, we have learned that once technical services librarians are done processing the book, there is little to be done unless a book is damaged. In the case of electronic resources, the need to maintain the digital work is much more time intensive and can require the full-time attention of an ER Librarian. The question that Watson ponders for the first half of the article is:

Why are libraries willing to compromise their desire for perpetual access?

• Patron Pressure
• Rise of Distance Education
• Availability of Content: Electronic content is just becoming more popular
  
• Financial Pressure: shrinking budgets
• Physical Storage of items
• Human resources limitations

It seems like the above issues keep coming up in every article we read about ERM. In fact, this entire article seems to be repeating many of the mantras we have heard from ERM librarians throughout the entire class, and can be summed up as such: "Even though electronic publishing is clearly the way that the library acquisition trends are going, there isn't enough money or personnel for us to provide what our patrons want."

Some more ideas that are repeated from our other readings again by Watson are:

• Normally a fee is required to maintain perpetual access.
• "Cost for digital storage are much higher than generally believed (49)."
• Technology changes very quickly, so that things saved in former file formats or on types of drives may no longer be accessible.
• Access versus ownership
• Pay-per-view and document delivery are on the rise
  
• Just-in-time collection development is increasingly popular
• "Preserving everything is not an option (51)"

The really interesting part of the article was reading about how all of the different stakeholders are trying to preserve electronic materials. Third-party preserver/providers of e-resources are discussed, including JSTOR, LOCKSS, and Portico. Google Books were mentioned, although, as I learned in 661, the actual access to these materials can be seen as an issue that is changing rapidly, and there are now more stakeholders. The quality of the scans may be questionable, as well, but Watson does not go in to detail or political issues surrounding Google Books, rather reports that it exists. Furthermore, I was impressed by the inclusion of the discussion of what governments are doing. I believe that the government initiatives should be stepped up, especially in the US: Watson does not mention where the Library of Congress is in all of this, rather only reports on the weak and voluntary submission of materials asked for by the National Institutes of Health. I am sure a compulsory submission of materials, such as the one in the UK, would be more effective for ensuring preservation of e-resources long term.

Just yesterday, I was working at the reference desk at MERIT, when a patron asked if she could access a particular journal. She wanted to view the entire journal issue online, not just one article, although they did have one article in mind as an interesting one from that issue. We found out that the access to the electronic version of the journal had been canceled and that back issues were not able to be viewed. The patron was confused. She told us that she had reviewed this journal in this way frequently in the past, but now the website was asking her for a login, even when she was on a campus computer. We also tried to get in, but to no avail. We called over to Memorial Library, and were told it was not available any longer. There was also no print version of the journal in UW's collection after 1999. The patron was in disbelief when we told her that there was nothing we could do except submit an ILL request, and even then the lending library would be recalcitrant to sending an entire journal article, due to copyright issues. She was shocked at the price of the journal. She mentioned that ILL was "too slow" and was not an option. This is a prime example of why we must assure perpetual access. It is confusing to our users when things they could do previously are no longer allowed, and they are not aware of the price that is being paid for journal access.