No more free access to Canadian science journals
March 8, 2011
In this article by Emily Chung at CBC News, some unfortunate conclusions were drawn that do not accurately reflect the situation. CRKN did recognize and was very concerned that the loss of free access to NRC Research Press journals for Canadians on Jan 1/11 (resulting from termination of funding from the federal Depository Services Branch) would pose serious issues for users. Members asked CRKN to make continuing access to this content a priority. That’s why NRT and staff put a national agreement in place for January 1, with the aim of securing the lowest costs for libraries to continue access to the full suite of journals, eliminate duplication of effort by individual institutions (or regional groups) and also ensure that usage of the digital content would be covered by the CRKN model license agreement (conscious of the Access Copyright issues facing everyone). Unfortunately, there was not an immediate way to provide the all-Canada access that the federal funding had covered previously, without even higher costs falling to the university libraries.
With regard to the university libraries that did not participate in the CRKN national agreement, Ms. Chung was not aware that some had opted for title-by-title or a smaller sub-set of subscriptions directly with CSP. Some institutions with primarily liberal arts programs decided to subscribe very selectively to one or a few titles rather than to the full suite. CRKN apologizes for any misunderstanding that may have arisen in connection with the portrayal of this situation. Read the article.
Read the CRKN News Release Canadian Research Knowledge Network Establishes National Agreement with Canadian Science Publishing