The story in the Chronicle of Higher Education starts:
In mid-March, “The New York Times” announced that it would make its premium online content available free to college students. The content, called TimesSelect, includes columnists and archives going back to the 1800s.
The offer was part of a continuing effort to attract young readers to the newspaper.
It seems that there has been a slight adjustment in the deal, however, after college librarians complained that they already pay tens of thousands of dollars for access to premium New York Times content through database companies like ProQuest and LexisNexis.
Does this seem strange to anyone else?
Am I missing something here? Does this mean the NYT is decreasing their proposed access because of complaints by librarians? That doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Re:Does this seem strange to anyone else?
It does if you’re paying thousands of dollars for access to the same info your students are getting for free.
Re:Does this seem strange to anyone else?
I understand that’s the issue. Is the resolution a good thing?
Re
So, let me see if I got this straight? The NYT actually puts out what seems a very nice opportunity for students, as well as faculty and staff (heck, I don’t really read the NYT, and I went ahead and registered just to try it out. Now, if the WSJ did something similar, oh well), to get access to the Select Content, and a few librarians decided to complain and thus ruin it for everyone now? Whatever happened to free access ideals and all? As much as I get pinched by having to pay for databases like Lexis and Proquest (yes, we have both here), the databases are not the same thing as the online content. A lot of what you get with the database is the search capability, not to mention that with something like Lexis you get other things along with the NYT, like the Chronicle, which is how I read the Chron article. I wish sometimes some of those overzealous library folks would just, you know, maybe keep quiet? Sorry, but the idea that now NYT lowers the access bar to only those colleges with the databases to appease some academic librarians just does not sit well. So much for bringing in more readers.
Re:Does this seem strange to anyone else?
Well… that depends on whether the NYT makes more money licensing out its content to databases or whether its makes more from luring new subscribers. I think the overall goal is to keep everbody in the black.
Re:Does this seem strange to anyone else?
I think it sucks big time, since I work at a small, poor academic library that cannot afford the licensed Proquest version. We were really excited about the original offer.
I understand the complaints from libraries that have already paid big money for the Proquest version, but this solution from TimesSelect is a bummer. The Proquest version still has great advantages to it. The original TimesSelect offer limited the search options and the amount of full-text articles viewed each month. I’m just sorry that the outcry from Proquest’s subscriber libraries resulted in a loss of an important FREE source for my library, as limited as it was.
I don’t even know what is being mentioned 😛
As I can’t read the original article
Re:I don’t even know what is being mentionedK drvhPfwGcjh8y46Nrv3q5g
This link might work for a few more days http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=pcNdr2qRr
So…
After reading the article it appears that they are giving access only to students at the colleges that already pay for access through databases.
That makes no sense at all.
My public library has access to the NYT throught Newsbank so that’s what I use to look at any TimesSelect content that I’m interested in. So if your college is not one of the lucky ones, see if your local library has Newsbank or Proquest.