Archival rights and perpetual access in e-journal licenses of New Zealand academic libraries

Abstract

The transition from an print format to an electronic one with journals can place exceptional limitations on the freedoms a library has to print, share, and store information it has paid for. A survey was sent to 27 New Zealand universities and polytechnics, addressing the proportions of online resources that were and were not covered by any form of long-term access clause, and how interested libraries were in making that value higher or lower, furthermore. 48 licenses from 3 universities were examined and analyzed. The researcher determined that less than 20% of the online holdings for most New Zealand educational libraries had a print duplicate, archive, or perpetual access right, and that as much as 70% of the resources of a library could be without any long-term access provision. Licenses fail to even address these issues in 70% of eases. However, academic libraries ranked the importance of such provisions highly, with over 2/3 of respondents claiming it deserved a 5 out of 10 or better in importance. Examination of licenses revealed that the issues of long-term access to licensed materials are addressed in less than 30% of licenses, and only by providers that are offering them. Clarification of licenses is a logical next step that will inform libraries what rights they have but are unaware of, while stressing the importace of these rights to the providers.