Perhaps I'm being cynical here, but my big concern is that after these
materials are digitized, we'll all have to pay through the nose to gain
access to them.  In the case of microfilm, the library retains the copies
they have in hand, so at least those materials are still available to all who
come into that library.  In the case of print, the materials are often gone.

Are we giving away the store?  Should we not try to act collectively to gain
open access or reduced rates for everyone or something?  It's getting to the
point where one must be affiliated to an organization to get access to
information.  Individual citizens or those who are trying to run small
businesses and don't have the financial resources to rent access to
information they need are disenfranchised.

What do we need to do to redress this situation and still enable the
digitization process to continue?

aline

Aline Soules
Cal State East Bay
510-885-4596
aline.soules@csueastbay.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Adelaide Fletcher
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 7:57 AM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Digitization requests from newspaper publishers

We are going to participate in a similar agreement at my library but for
several complete journal back-runs, not a newspaper. We will receive a
free institutional site license for one year plus perpetual access to
the entire archive (up to the last volume we give them, not to the
present). We are not doing the digitization, just packaging the volumes
and shipping them to a third party. We are receiving modest compensation
for the staff time it will take to do this.

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Seth Smith
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 8:21 AM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [SERIALST] Digitization requests from newspaper publishers

I work at one of the largest and most comprehensive state newspaper
repositories in the country.  We are starting to get requests from
conglomerate publishers who want to digitize their titles (going back
into the
mid-1800s) from microfilm negatives that we filmed in-house over the
years and which we store and own.

Our relationships with publishers has always been excellent--we recieve
free copies of newspapers to microfilm.  However, the enormous amount of
staff time and money involved in duplicatiing the negatives for
digitization, as well as microfilm ownership rights seem like they must
be addressed on some level.
We are hoping to get an "institutional membership" for these digital
archives for which our members and patrons can access either remotely or
in-house to offset some of our costs.

I'm sure other newspaper archives and serials librarians are running
into similar situations. Can anyone offer some helpful suggestions on
this?

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