The Commitment to Securing Perpetual Journal Access

Abstract

Current and emerging trends raise questions about the extent to which academic research libraries should continue to seek perpetual access provisions for journal acquisitions. To describe the questions being raised, this paper begins by framing perpetual access commitments within the contexts of the past, present, and future. The paper then assesses current views and practices by describing and analyzing the results of a survey of librarians. The results show that, while the respondents’ libraries generally espouse strong commitments to perpetual access, a combination of factors is leading many libraries to take actions that weaken perpetual access provisions.