Perpetual Access Reflections: how long is forever

1
Perpetual Access Reflectionshow long is
forever?

• Ann Okerson
• ALCTS-CRS
• Costs of Continuing Resources in Libraries
• January 25, 2009

2
Contexts for perpetuity (forever)

• Long-lived organizations
• Seem to be about values, education, knowledge,
  people coexisting
• Examples universities, museums, libraries,
  governments, religions
• Shorter-lived organizations
• Often associated with businesses, communications,
  clothing, etc.
• Examples manufacturing, gadgets, transportation
• Examples of long-lived formats in library work
• Manuscripts, books, microform, IF
• On the right media - properly cared for

3
Digital the newborn

• Is a medium (10-15 years of real life in the
  wider community)
• Some successful attempts related to long-term
  digital access so far are mostly for journals
• National library initiatives (KB, Australia,
  etc.)
• Government services such as PMC
• OCLC initiatives
• LOCKSS 1999
• Portico 2001
• Other projects, collaborative and local
• We don't yet know how most of these will fare
  over time

4
License definitions

• "Perpetual access" language in licenses goes
  something like this
• If the agreement is terminated, for whatever
  reason (trigger events such as ceased
  subscription, ceased title, ceased publisher),
  continuing access to material that was licensed
  will be provided (1) in mutually agreed upon
  archival digital form (DVD, tape, download) or
  (2) ongoing online access through (i)
  information provider or (ii) third party archive.
  There is also the possibility of local load by
  licensee

5
License language

• Is this adequate language?
• Is current license language well-intentioned but
  hollow?
• Would such language stand up in court?
• no organization can be contractually bound to
  perpetual  they can offer a best effort,
  including best effort to find a successor
• Do libraries insist on adequate perpetual access?
• We try our best but we may sign anyhow
• We say we are unable to pay additional for
  assurances beyond the high costs we are already
  incurring for e-resources
• Is perpetual access being confused with long-term
  preservation issues?

6
E-content perpetuity risk assessment

• Least risk
• Mainstream western journals increasing number
  of options and some shared understandings about
  goals
• More at risk
• Aggregations of periodicals
• Aggregations of e-books
• Often there are no 3rd party arrangements, no
  residual products, less standard contract
  language (maybe none)
• Most risk
• Databases
• Visual, sound, multimedia materials
• News sources, grey literature
• Growing rapidly long-term access not tackled

7
Print and perpetuity

• Seems to be gaining a kind of favor or attention
  re. perpetuity
• Some libraries still cancel print only if sure
  there are appropriate backup provisions
• Interesting new initiatives
• CRL/CDL-UC initiative print archive in 2
  locations, for 4600 licensed journal titles
• RLG/OCLC shared print supporting initiatives
• These initiatives cost money (time, delivery
  mechanisms)

8
Other unresolved issues

• License/lease vs. ownership
• Perfect vs. good enough
• Archiving services that "obey" publishers, i.e.,
  use the versions publishers provide them
• Migrate content only or functionality? Is it an
  integral part of the content?
• Details such as completeness, accuracy
• Cost? Unknown and not cheap
• Huge rights issues for "born digital" and new
  media (blogs, uTube)
• How many e-archives do we need? Many? Few?
• Standards?

9
Consider these things

• Perpetual" is a function of the confidence we
  have in the life of our institutions
• If a community wants perpetuity, that group has
  to invest in it, however they do so
• Librarians blithe assumption perpetual is
  good, but
• Old material gets less and less use. More and
  more older material will get less and less use
  as there is more and more of it
• Time winnows - do we have unrealistic
  expectations?
• Resisting winnowing very expensive
• In addition to talking about perpetual access, we
  must discuss how much we hope to access in
  perpetuity why, for whom, and for how long?
• Finally, who will have the right to turn off the
  perpetual machine and under what circs?