Perpetual Access Reflections:

how long is “forever?”

Ann OkersonALCTS-CRSCosts of Continuing Resources in LibrariesJanuary 25, 2009

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

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

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

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?

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

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)

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?

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?