April 3, 2007
The Gray Lady Rethinks Her Place in College Libraries
In mid-March, The New York Times announced that it would make its premium online content, called Times Select, which includes columnists and archives going back to the 1800s, available to college students for free. The offer was part of an effort to lure young readers to the Gray Lady.
It seems there has since been a slight tweak to the offer, after librarians complained that they already pay tens of thousands of dollars for access to premium New York Times content through database companies like ProQuest, Lexis-Nexis, and so on.
Vivian Schiller, vice president and general manager of NYTimes.com, says that Times Select archives will be available only to students of colleges that subscribe to database companies that carry Times content. The change comes “out of respect and compliance with these agreements that we already have in place,” Ms. Schiller says.
At the moment, none of the pre-1980s archives is available to students for free. NYTimes.com is working on a patch that will recognize colleges that are subscribers to databases.
Barbara Fister, a library director at Gustavus Adolphus College who is a prominent voice among librarians online, was among the first to raise the issue on a couple of library discussion lists. Some respondents to her e-mails felt they had needlessly spent money on databases, she says. Others thought the databases offered a superior presentation for the same content. Still others couldn’t afford the databases and were glad the Times was giving away its content to students.
“I have mixed feelings,” she says. As someone who is an avid reader of newspapers and who worries about their future, she believes that the Times should make its online content free to students. Then again, she recently shelled out nearly $20,000 for Times archives in a ProQuest database — a real stretch for her small library. “Maybe I shouldn’t have paid so much,” she says.
Shortly after the Times announced its free offer to students in mid-March, Ms. Fister held a conference call with ProQuest officials who were “completely surprised” by the Times announcement, she says.
“It was pretty shocking when the news came out,” says Susan Whyte, director of the library at Linfield College, which had splurged for access to New York Times archives through ProQuest shortly before the Times’ free offer. She says she wonders whether her library will encounter a situation like this again in the near future. —Scott Carlson
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This is outrageous! The librarians who bought access to ProQuest are still getting exactly what they paid for regardless of what the NYTimes website offers—no less.
How dare a librarian lobby against the free flow of information just to feel better about a purchasing decision that, in hindsight, may seem foolish.
— Eli Apr 3, 04:56 PM #
I wonder, do these same librarians write letters to Apple urging them not to release any new computers? After all, it would make their current investment in computers seem worse by comparison.
— Eli Apr 3, 04:59 PM #
Using a word like “shocked” seems to be a bit of hyperbole. The Times deserves kudos for its experiment. (libraries might be able to use the Times gesture to obtain better deals with information providers) Winning new readers is the name of the game.
— Art Clifford Apr 3, 05:14 PM #
This is not the outcome I’d hoped for, and I certainly was not lobbying against information being free. I simply felt taken for a ride when the publisher who had made a deal with a third party to sell content at a large price tag to libraries turned around and marketed the same content to our students as “complementary”. (It wasn’t free to everyone, just students and faculty with .edu e-mail addresses. The people we spend many thousands to provide it to.) I’m sorry they turned off the access and I’d be much happier if they made it available to everyone.
Frankly, I raised the question because it seemed underhanded of the Times to do business this way.
Librarians are in favor of open access. We’ve fought hard for it. Don’t let the Times’s response to a question asked in good faith make you think librarians are against information being widely and freely available. It’s what we do, after all. I just don’ t like getting soaked.
— Barbara Fister Apr 3, 05:58 PM #
You get what you pay for in life. It is not ethical to expect something for nothing. If librarians represent institutions of higher learning, they must exhibit the highest ethical conduct in purchasing services for consumption.
William Allan Kritsonis, PhD
PhD Program in Educational Leadership
Prairie View A&M University
Member of the Texas A&M University System
Editor-in-Chief
NATIONAL FORUM JOURNALS
www.nationalforum.com
— William Allan Kritsonis, PhD Apr 4, 09:37 AM #
Reading between the lines in the story above, it sounds as if the NYT realized that they had jumped into this great idea pretty quickly, without considering the implications for their pre-existing agreements with online companies. I’m gathering this from the quote in the story that says it’s being changed “out of respect and compliance with these agreements that we already have in place.” I’m not familiar with the contents of their agreements with these online vendors, but it might be a legality that has caused them to limit the access. Really, as a librarian I wish they would just open archival access to the entire public at large, not only to academic institutions. There are lots of independent researchers out there who could also benefit from this access.
— Jerilyn Marshall Apr 4, 12:22 PM #
It should be noted that services such as ProQuest provide library users with far more than content. The indexing and search capabilities are extremely valuable for librarians, researchers and students. Much of the content that librarians purchase access to is in the public domain yet remains difficult to find without such databases. I dont believe the New York Times search function could rival the ease of use of the one ProQuest provides. Additionally, how else is a student to know that what they are seeking is to be found in the NY Times in the first place?
— Elizabeth Perry Apr 4, 04:45 PM #