License Analysis of e-Journal Perpetual Access Mei Zhang ⁎, Kristin R. Eschenfelder School of Library and Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA abstract article info Article history: Received 16 September 2013 Accepted 5 November 2013 Keywords: Perpetual access Licensing e-Journal Scholarly publishing Electronic publishing Institutionalization In this paper we investigate the definitions of perpetual access and examine current studies on the attitudes and concerns towards perpetual access from both libraries and publishers separately. We then conduct a content analysis of 72 e-journal licenses to explore whether perpetual access clauses vary among commercial publishers and non-commercial publishers, whether clauses change over time, and whether differences exist between consortium and site licenses. Results suggest that different perpetual access clauses may be at different stages of institutionalization. Perpetual access clauses that are more institutionalized include: addressing perpetual access in license, providing perpetual access upon expiry of subscription, and specifying a location for perpetual access. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. INTRODUCTION With the development of information technologies and the Internet, scholars are increasingly relying on licensed, rather than purchased, electronic resources (e-resources) such as e-journals and e-books. But, e-resources have affordability concerns; some economic analyses charge that publishers inflate e-resource subscription fees, charging journals “on what the market can bear” (Davis, 2003; Susman, Carter, Ropes, Gray, & The Information Access Alliance, 2003). High costs and shrinking university budgets have led some libraries to cancel e-resource licenses, raising the issue of “perpetual access” or to what extent authorized users can access previously subscribed to (but now cancelled) digital materials. Because e-resource titles typically exist on publishers' servers, rather than library shelves, it is unclear whether or not the library can maintain access to materials after cancellation. The Digital Library Federation (DLF) Electronic Resource Management Initiative (ERMI), developed the term “perpetual access” (we use the abbreviation “PA”) to describe the situation where a library can “perma- nently access the licensed materials paid for during the period of the license agreement” (Jewell et al., 2004, p 158). 1 While post cancellation access is a concern, several other factors contribute to a library's need for PA; for example, the North East Research Libraries (NERL) (2003) consortium states that PA should be ensured for “mergers and acquisi- tions, insolvency, or transfers of ownership to another publisher”. Several model licenses address PA including the Liblicense Model License Agreement and Commentary (2008), Standard License Agreement: Publisher and the Regents of the University of California (2011), University of Oregon Libraries model license (n.d.), TRI- College Library Consortium License Agreement for Electronic Re- sources (2006), and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions IFLA Licensing Principles (2001). Model licenses com- monly recommend that licenses include the following: • Clauses stating that PA is provided under automatic termination of subscription, • Clauses stating that PA will include access to backfiles if backfiles were part of the subscription, • Clauses specifying a location for PA copies, and • Clauses allowing the library to host its own PA copies. In this paper we explore the status of PA in a sample of North American academic library licenses to see how they compare to the above recommended clauses. Our sample includes e-journal licenses from 11 publishers from the period 2000 to 2009. This paper extends e-journal licensing research reported by Eschenfelder, Tsai, Zhu, and Stewart (2013). In this new paper, we focus on PA clauses in licenses — an issue not covered in the earlier paper. This paper makes several contributions to the licensing research that addresses PA. We define and track multiple PA conditions not depicted in earlier studies, we refine the methodology used in Eschenfelder et al. (2013) to include tracking of license silence, we track licenses over a longer time period than earlier PA studies, and we suggest characteris- tics of different stages of institutionalization of model PA license terms. The study answers the following research questions: (1) How does a sample of academic library e-journal licenses define PA? (2) Do the attributes of PA in those licenses vary in terms of: • Different types of publishers: commercial publishers vs. non- commercial publishers? • Different time periods (2000–2004, and 2005–2009)? The Journal of Academic Librarianship 40 (2014) 62–69 ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 608 556 5027. E-mail address: mzhang48@wisc.edu (M. Zhang). 1 Perpetual access is also sometimes called “permanent access” or “post-cancellation access.” 0099-1333/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2013.11.002 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect The Journal of Academic Librarianship