Introduction to Topic

Libraries have been engaged in online services to users for many years now. For example, Linking CD-ROMS to a LAN was being replaced by the web in the late 1990s (Ruth, 2000). Academic libraries in particular have been big spenders on e-resource subscriptions. Costs for these subscriptions rise yearly. The complexity of licensing and technology for limiting the use of the resources to paid subscribers also continues to increase. These are strong motivators for the development of the Open Access movement. Because the content and format are easily and constantly changing for these resources, it has become complicated to license, maintain accounts for and provide specialized access rights to these resources. Content providers have sometimes decided it is easier to provide the content for free and cover costs through various other means. In the context of science content this is more of an interest than in other academic fields where the costs of producing the material are less financed by taxes and academic institution.

The development of open access is obviously exciting, however it also presents more complexities to many already challenging problems. Creating and enforcing standard metadata and general operational standards across a huge publishing industry seems almost impossible, especially considering the excellent opportunities that have arisen for almost anyone to start publishing. Without metadata standards, gathering, organizing and cross-referencing content is filled with technological challenges. Without operational standards for online content, a wide variety of problems can occur. For example, once a print journal has been sent to you the content is very unlikely to change after you catalog and record access to it. However with a database a single Webmaster could make a decision to change something or unknowingly change something that was written into the licensing agreement. Such changes could render the catalog record inaccurate and create a situation where a library is no longer getting the access that was agreed upon in the license.

Often the location of the content changes URLs, causing users to link to a broken link or an automated message reporting that access is not available. It is difficult to measure how often a user receives the idea that we don't have paid access when in fact any one of many things has caused an accidental limitation of access. Online access to a single online journal can cost anywhere from few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars a year. This creates urgency around the development of tools that can accurately evaluate the number of successful accesses. A standard system for tracking usage statistics (i.e., Counter reports) is still be developed and applied. For example a specific Counter report method for counting eBook usage was only recently developed and released in 2006.

Usage statistics are helpful in managing the cost of maintaining and supporting access to those resources. Because access issues of licensed resources do not appear to be going away any time soon it is a real commitment for libraries to also support access issues for free resources. As the availability and volume of open access content develops, libraries have to make decisions about how to best allocate their time and energy in presenting resources to the users.

Reference:
Miller, Ruth H. (2000). "Electronic Resources and Academic Libraries, 1980-2000: A Historical Perspective." Library Trends, 48(4), 645-670.