Quote:
Originally Posted by thibaulthalpern
I agree what Professor Walshe wrote in that article. I think the way it should be is digital editions without DRM. Academic journal articles are already this way. A university (or yourself) can subscribe to an electronic version of a journal and the publisher provides PDF versions of the full articles of the journal. These PDF versions are not DRM'd--at least not the ones I encounter which are in the humanities and social sciences. These PDF versions are downloadable and freely transferrable to your other computers and devices.
The way the rest of the digital book industry is going, I'm not pleased at all. If anyone wants to see a total replacement of paper (referring to discussion on another thread in this sub-forum) then we'll have to solve this problem of access which DRM prevents. Until then, it won't go anywhere far.
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It's not that simple, unfortunately. In the days of paper, when your university decided to stop a subscription to
Mind, or
French History, then you still had the back issues of the journal on your library shelves.
Now, when your university cancels a subscription to a journal in electronic format, it entirely vanishes mmediately. You will no longer be able to look at the back numbers.
I know of several university departments near me, who would like to trim their library budget, owing to the financial situation.
A further problem arises when the publishers sell electronic journal subscriptions in bundles. You might no longer want the
Journal of Obscure Studies, or
Metatextual Musings, but you can't get rid of them without losing the one journal that you
do actually want.
Believe me, librarians and academics on the library commitee are tearing out their hair about this. We are saving a lot of valuable shelf-space; scholars can access journals from their homes; but the cost of renting these journals is more than you think. And while the publishers may
call it an electronic subscription, it's really just an expensive rental.