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Journal & Database (Serial) Cancelation Review Process 2019-2020

Frequently Asked Questions

 

From October 2018 through January 2019, the University Library surveyed campus faculty, staff and graduate students about local journal subscriptions.  Survey respondents were asked to indicate which subscriptions were of most need to support research and teaching needs now and into the future. Below is an FAQ associated with the details of the survey. 

If you don't see your question here, or have questions about what is happening in 2019/2020, use our feedback form to contact us

Q: Why are there multiple lists of titles?

A: UCSC is part of the 10 campus library system. As a group of libraries, we subscribe to large journal packages (Nature, Springer), expensive journal aggregators (JSTOR, EBSCO) together, in order to gain cost efficiencies and expand the universe of titles we can offer on our campuses. We also subscribe to titles as individual campuses. Below is a summary of the different ways and types of resources we subscribe to and how they correspond to the title lists.

  • Locally Subscribed titles=titles UCSC subscribes to without the California Digital Library's (CDL) assistance. 
  • UC-wide Subscribed databases=databases all, or almost all, 10 campuses subscribe to as a group.
  • CDL-licensed titles=journals that all, or almost all, 10 campuses subscribe to as a group.

Q: Why are we not being asked to weigh in about databases now? It looks like some databases could be cancelled this year.

A: You are welcome to provide feedback about the database list provided in April. The complication with the database list is that the resources are under review by all campuses now. If too many UC campuses decide to drop any of the databases, UCSC will most likely have to drop out, too. We simply cannot afford to license titles like the Economist Intelligence Unit on our own, for example. UCSC will try to keep access to all the databases we can. 

Q: What is perpetual access/rights?

A: Perpetual Access/Rights means that when we license a journal, the publisher agrees to make the journal (or journals in a package) accessible to us in perpetuity. Perpetual Rights Agreements can include what happens to the journals if the publisher goes out of business. Or, if we cancel a subscription, for example, it may provide allowances to move the e-files to our own server, or, access may be allowed/provided through a service like Portico or LOCKSS which are dedicated to maintaining access to titles beyond a publisher's life cycle and/or library's subscription terms.