We are very aware of the problems that arise when journal titles are transferred from one publisher to another, particularly where a learned society or association is involved. As many of you will be aware this issue has been highlighted recently in emails to lis-e-resources and is one that is far from uncommon. A brief review that we undertook recently of a number of announcements from publishers and information on the Project Transfer website concerning titles transferred to them for 2011, showed that these involved some 43 societies and 81 titles.
We are considering ways in which we could help address this problem and would like to get your views and feedback. As a start we will be inviting Ian Russell, CEO of ALPSP, and Ed Pentz, Executive Director of Crossref and Chair of the Transfer Working Group to the May meeting of JISC Electronic Information Resources Working Group (EIRWG) to discuss the issue and try to agree some steps that could be jointly undertaken. For example this could include providing learned societies with a paper that describes the impact on library procedures and readers’ access to content when titles are transferred, along with suggestions of ways in which the societies could help - in situations where they have made decisions to transfer titles. This would include, for example, seeking agreement from the publishers with whom they are negotiating, to sign up to the Project Transfer Code of Practice and to follow a set of procedures, aimed at ensuring that any change of publisher takes place with the minimum of disruption and problems for libraries and users.
It has been shown that the main reason why a society moves its in-house journal publishing to a commercial publisher, or transfers from one publisher to another, is to achieve a greater level of income and profitability. Whilst many societies may consider that any problems caused for libraries are outweighed by the benefits the societies receive from moving their titles, a better understanding of the problems and impact may persuade a number of them to give serious consideration to the implications of switching publishers.
Your help:
Where you could help us with this is in providing feedback on the extent of the problem that is caused for your organisation and users, and in which areas. We know that these include: price increases; delays in subscription records and actual content being made available to the new publisher; confusion and errors relating to access rights, loss of access; change of hosting platforms; etc. The ‘evidence’ you can provide will ensure that the paper we produce for societies fully reflects and describes the extent and nature of the problem.
We’ve created an online survey which will make it easier and quicker for you to provide us with your feedback and thoughts. This can be found at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/35WC5YY I can imagine that you are all very busy, but would ask if you could please take a brief bit of your time to complete the survey. We will make a summary of the results available to you and let you know the outcome of our discussions at the May EIRWG meeting.
