I think this is a good place to share what I found out today. The Chronicle of Higher Education is 'devaluing' our institutional subscriptions.

We get the online institutional subscription and there is a daily email called Academe Today. A section called Chronicle Focus says it is available to subscribers only - when I clicked on a story, it said I needed to UPGRADE to an individual subscription to access the information. It is a collection of articles that they have put together but blocked institutional subscribers from accessing. We can access the individual articles but not the article that has gathered them all together.

I wrote to them saying this was unacceptable in my opinion as a librarian. Their page for institutional subscriptions says we have full, unrestricted access to the Chronicle and these articles say they are for subscribers only - we ARE subscribers. They disagree. There is an article about their drive for individual subscriptions - http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/11/the-chronicle-of-higher-education-looks-beyond-site-licenses-to-focus-on-individual-subscribers/

I think librarians should email them and spread the word - making institutional subscriptions different in terms of access is unacceptable and not the norm. We don't want this to be the norm. We don't want institutional subscriptions to be inferior.

I wrote to Michael.Riley@chronicle.com (the president and editor in chief)
Scott.Smallwood@chronicle.com (managing editor)
and a few others - these were the two most interested.

If you disagree with this new practice on their part, please protest and let them know it - today would be great. And please write to listservs, other consortia, other librarians and let them know so they can join in. I'm sixty years old and haven't been this motivated to start a 'revolution' on something since library school. Please help!

Sally Murray

Technical Services, Web and E-Resources Librarian

The American University of Paris Library

9 bis, rue de Monttessuy
75007 Paris France

tél: + 33 (0)1 40 62 05 53

fax: + 33 (0)1 45 56 92 89

smurray@aup.edu

library.aup.edu