University of Chicago Press - Enterprise License

[Liblicense-L Listowner <liblicen@pantheon.yale.edu>]

Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:23:06 -0500
From: Paul Metz <pmetz@vt.edu>
To: ann.okerson@yale.edu

Ann, would you be willing to post the following to liblicense-l 
for me?

****

While I appreciate N. Gupta's response (below) to the thread I 
initiated or at least revived, I believe the Chicago journals 
people are still missing the key point. Most of the new features 
of the Enterprise Model are extremely welcome and represent small 
steps in making ejournals something more than pixilated versions 
of print. They are useful innovations and doubtless worth paying 
extra for, at least in some cases. However, the fundamental 
problem remains that Chicago has tied these innovations to a 
major step backwards by making institutions choose between 
upgrading to Enterprise or downgrading to a single simultaneous 
user.

I believe that all sides of the exchange in scholarly and 
scientific communication have held it as a shared value, from the 
earliest days of ejournals, that we should never allow ejournals 
to be inferior to their print counterparts in any way whatsoever. 
Yet at this moment, for all I know, different Virginia Tech users 
are reading issues from the 1982, 1988, and 2001 volumes of Signs 
or five years of AJS. In the future Chicago envisions, they would 
have to wait their turn.

I truly dread the thought of a day when I or my successor has to 
make title-by-title decisions about the number of simultaneous 
users for each of our thousands of electronic journals. I note 
with particular pique that this necessity has been thrust on us, 
not by the usual suspects in STM publishing, but by a partner in 
scholarly communication.

This issue is larger than a simple matter of terms and billing 
for ejournals, and for that reason I think it would be 
appropriate to include in the conversation those who bear the 
ultimate responsibility for The University of Chicago's 
contributions to scholarly and scientific communication and for 
its reputation as a fair player. I hope that others will consider 
joining me in writing the individuals listed below.

Paul Metz, Director of Collection Management
University Libraries 
Virginia Tech
P.O. Box 90001 / Blacksburg, VA / 24062-9001
Ph: (540) 231-5663 FAX: (540) 231-3694 email: pmetz@vt.edu

*******

Robert J. Zimmer
President, The University of Chicago
Administration Building
5801 S. Ellis Avenue, 502
Chicago, IL 60637

Thomas F. Rosenbaum
Provost, The University of Chicago
5801 S. Ellis Avenue, 502
Chicago, IL 60637
Ph: 773-702-8810
Fax: 773-702-9595

******

> We take your concerns very seriously and are contacting everyone in
> >this thread personally to discuss these issues further. As one 
> >of the oldest and largest non-profit university publishers, we 
> >are constantly seeking best practices that balance our 
> >commitment to the availability of scholarship with our 
> >responsibility for the future of the press. The 
> >enterprise-wide model is intended to introduce more equitable, 
> >tiered pricing for unlimited access, including classroom use 
> >and multi-site. For those institutions where usage of any 
> >given journal does not justify an enterprise-wide license, we 
> >have introduced a single-concurrency subscription, with rates 
> >that are still among the lowest in the industry. Some of these 
> >low rates are subsidized, and any surpluses are reinvested 
> >into the scholarly community and technological
> >upgrades.
> >
> >In May we will launch Chicago Journals Online using the Atypon 
> >Premium platform. Later this year we plan to enrich our online 
> >offering with as much archival content as we can procure, 
> >going back to volume 1:1 in most cases, included at no 
> >additional charge in all electronic subscriptions. We hope 
> >that the relative cost of access for all will not lead to the 
> >choice to provide access for none. I encourage everyone with 
> >any comments or suggestions to contact me directly at 
> >(773)702-8785 or e-mail me at ngupta@press.uchicago.edu.
> >
> >Sincerely
> >
> >
> >NAWIN GUPTA
> >Journals Division Manager
> >The University of Chicago Press
> >www.journals.uchicago.edu