0.8 Online hosting issues and options  (Page 5/11)

Aggregations often appeal to libraries, as they provide a library’s patrons with a single interface to multiple journals, simplifying use and lowering user training and support costs. Aggregations can also allow a library to license access to content that it would not otherwise be able to afford on a title-by-title basis. For a society, participating in an aggregation can help increase market penetration and generate revenue by facilitating library consortia sales.

Large collections of journals from commercial publishers have captured a growing share of academic library acquisitions budgets, putting pressure on subscriptions from small publishers, including societies. In response, some small publishers participate in multiple-publisher aggregations. These cooperative aggregations recognize that small publishers require sufficient revenue to offset the loss of institutional subscriptions to the primary journal. Examples of such nonprofit aggregators include Project Muse from the Johns Hopkins University Press, the ALPSP Learned Journals Collection (in partnership with Swets), HighWire Press, JSTOR, and subject-specific collections, including BioOne , GeoScienceWorld , and Scitation from the American Institute of Physics. Some of these collections allow for the purchase of individual titles, in addition to bundled collections.

Besides the nonprofit aggregations listed above, commercial services provide online aggregations of peer-reviewed journals for the academic market, including EBSCO Online, Factiva, Ingenta, LexisNexis, Ovid, ProQuest, Thomson Gale, H.W. Wilson, and others. Most of the large commercial aggregations include magazines, newspapers, and other content besides peer-reviewed journals. As noted in Chapter Four, many of these aggregations impose embargoes intended to minimize the effect on primary journal subscriptions.

Key online licensing terms and provisions

Online journal publication raises a variety of issues pertaining to permitted use, especially for institutional subscribers, that did not arise in a print environment. Besides the ready propagation of online versions, the use of digital versions in library e-reserve systems and in learning management systems raise additional questions about permitted use. As a result, many publishers govern the online distribution of journals through licenses that establish explicit terms and conditions of use. This is also true of open-access content, which is often governed by some form of Creative Commons license (see www.creativecommons.org ). According to one survey, both nonprofit and commercial publisher policies are trending towards allowing greater use of online material in e-reserves, course packs, and interlibrary loan. Cox and Cox (2008), 67-71.

A variety of model licenses can serve as the basis for a society’s online journal license. See, for example: the generic licensing models Web site developed by John Cox Associates ( (External Link) ), the Northeast Research Libraries Consortium (NERL) online licensing guidelines ( (External Link) ), and the National e-Journals Initiative (NESLi) license ( (External Link) ), as well as those of Creative Commons ( (External Link) ). Many of the model licenses were developed cooperatively by publisher associations and library organizations, and thus represent the interests of both groups. Another approach is to use the license terms proposed in the Shared Electronic Resources Understanding (SERU), which can accommodate the needs of many publishers and academic libraries, including the expectation of perpetual access (see ”Continuing Access,” below). See Hahn (2007) and NISO (2008a).