The History of Science Society

Vol. 39, No.3, July 2010
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How to Equalize Access to Digital Collections

by Daniel Goldstein, University of California, Davis

HacksHaven / Eric Hackathorn | FLICKR

HacksHaven / Eric Hackathorn | FLICKR

It is no news that scholars at major universities have better access to research materials than do their colleagues elsewhere. But lately, there has been growing concern that the imbalance is getting worse because of the way that digitized collections are being made available. It turns out that, in terms of equalizing access, digitization is a mixed bag.

On the one hand, the great promise of digital technology is that it makes it easy to create and share endlessly perfect copies of an original without any lessening of quality. But on the other, the reality is that digitization of primary source materials is expensive, and the variety of economic models under which it is done lead to widely divergent levels of access.

Some digitized collections (frequently those produced by libraries or museums) are freely available to anyone with internet access. But many of the largest, most important databases are commercial products. Two distinct aspects of commercial production affect the problem of access in two quite different ways.

First, most databases are not sold at a simple fixed price. Instead, price may be established on a sliding scale according to the size of the subscribing institution. It’s hard to know exactly what these products cost, since the license agreements are confidential but some vendors do publish scales that give you an idea of how great the difference in relative cost can be. For example the “Premium Collection” of academic journals from Project Muse can cost as much as $36,400 annually for a research university or as little as $2,000 for a high school. Sliding scales like that of Project Muse help equalize access—but only to a degree. Most databases are priced high enough at every level to strain a library’s budget.

Second, libraries typically don’t purchase a database, only access to it. Even when “perpetual access” is bought, use of the database is constrained not only by copyright but by license agreements that are typically more restrictive than the law. For example, you can’t interlibrary loan databases in the way that you can microfilm sets. They are licensed for use only by a defined population at the subscribing institution. Thus, although digitization technology makes widely distributed access easy, the commercial context of database production actually makes sharing more difficult.

One reason such restrictions are so detrimental to scholars is that, in addition to providing access to research materials, databases also facilitate their use. Data that might require years of scrolling through microfilm to assemble might now be retrieved in hours. As one historian told me recently, she is at a competitive disadvantage because her university’s library can’t acquire a database that others working in her field can use to their advantage.

Most historians of science (even those employed in higher education) do not work at institutions wealthy enough to purchase every database they need. In order to facilitate their research we need to encourage both the vendors of databases and those who license them to think creatively about their agreements. I think that universities and learned societies both need to do more to extend and equalize access to research databases to scholars regardless of their employment situation.

Here are a few suggested steps that might be taken in this direction. They are all based on two propositions. First, we work in a capitalist context so we must try to expand access to databases without compromising the vendors’ legitimate interest in making a profit. Second, the expense of a database lies in its production not its distribution; the real cost of providing access to an individual is negligible.

More universities should sign licenses to permit access to unaffiliated scholars. Typically, public universities may do so now and private ones do not. Most of the licenses signed by the University of California, for example, define a legal user of a database as (in part) anyone who is physically on the campus. In addition, where I work, we have public access terminals in the library that anyone can use.
We know that most graduates of doctoral programs do not find jobs at research universities; is it unreasonable to suggest that universities should facilitate the ongoing research programs of their Ph.D.s? (More than that, I believe it should be their obligation). Libraries should negotiate licenses that permit universities to provide access for graduates of their doctoral programs who are not working at research institutions. As long as such access was limited in this way, it wouldn’t cut into the vendors’ profits.
Learned societies like HSS could offer a similar service. Perhaps they could contract with relevant database providers to provide time-limited access to a limited number of their members—on condition that those members are unaffiliated scholars or meet some other criteria. Again, such an action would not cut into vendor profits. Alternatively, of course, the database provider could offer such access directly.
Vendors should extend the sliding scale of subscription costs to make time-limited access affordable on an individual basis to unaffiliated scholars. Learned societies or some other agency could also offer their members grants to offset those costs.
Finally, England offers yet another type of model to consider—but probably one that won’t work in the United States. There, a kind of national consortial organization licenses research databases for most of the publically funded Higher Education and Further Education institutions in the state. Depending on the license, these databases are either free to the institution or available at a cost (priced on a sliding scale) much below that of a separate subscription.
Any of these ideas would help make research opportunities more democratic and independent of place of employment while at the same time acknowledging the various economic realities in which we work. All of them require universities and learned societies to revise their sense of their obligations toward the alumni and membership.

History of Science Society

How to Equalize Access to Digital Collections

by Daniel Goldstein, University of California, Davis

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