How much does it cost to maintain a user login and password for academic journals?
I can see how physical products could be an issue, so what if–since so much is digitized now–universities offered lifetime access to academic search engines and journals for PhD graduates?
Just seems odd (and sad!) to me that once you become an expert in your field and a philosopher of your subject, you are immediately cut off from the resources that could continue to help you grow and contribute to your discipline.
Most PhD graduates spend 5-10 years becoming specialists in their areas, and then unless they land one of the increasingly rare tenure-track positions, they lose access to the very knowledge they helped create.
Has anyone’s university implemented something like this? Or are there affordable alternatives for independent scholars who want to stay connected to research in their field?
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Agreements with publishers likely limit who has access at given price points.
Money.
Edit: Also historically you’d get a PhD and then go off to teach somewhere and have access through that new institution. Of course that has changed.
>How much does it cost to maintain a user login and password for academic journals?
More than you would expect. At my institution, you can get an alumni membership with access to pretty much all physical material for pretty cheap (like $60/semester). If you want access to digital resources, the amount shoots up very quickly. Publishers charge libraries a lot for digital access.
On the plus side, there’s a lot more stuff available for free now than there used to be. JSTOR has some free article allowances, and some public libraries have some journal access.
My undergrad institution actually allowed alumni full access for a long time, but they just ended it last year due to cost. It’s been great for accessing what my current institution doesn’t have.
I still have access through my university, and so do most people around me. And then there are preprint servers for many fields these days.
As for why that is, it’s mostly because the exclusivity and financial barriers are a way for publishing houses to generate income, and for professional societies to sustain themselves. Whether or not you agree with that, it is like that and it will be like that. Universities are eating up the cost while you work as an academic for them because it is necessary for your work at the university, not for your entertainment. Once you’re on your own, you are responsible for your own research costs.
You have it backwards. Most (public) university library systems offer public access (on-site) to their physical resources, but online resources are tied directly to vendor agreements with publishers, which are paid on a yearly basis (in most cases).
In essence, we are renting these resources, not purchasing them, which means that publishers will increases prices year-to-year for several reasons including increased profit margins, inflation of overhead costs, and how many users are accessing them. Some universities are able to offer alumni passes with a fee that helps to offset the increased use, but it’s a complicated agreement that requires good standing (and negotiation skills) with your publisher’s rep.
Another complication is eBooks, which range in single-user to unlimited-user access. In context, for the majority of my university’s eBooks, if someone has a tab open with the eBook, no one else will be able to access it (single-user access). Now apply that to your scenario: The university is paying hundreds of dollars for this single copy of an eBook, and now a tuition-paying student is unable to access it because an alumni is using it. I’m not saying I agree with the way publishers set up the agreements, but we have to be careful in prioritizing our funding and our current study body’s academic success in spite of the unfair circumstances we receive from publishers.
Why? Because they would still have to pay for your access even if you have gone to another job that gives you access.
The number of inactive accounts they would continue to pay for would be large!
Electronic resource pricing is somewhat based on the population using the resource (and somewhat based on how hard the vendor thinks they can squeeze for it). You can probably extrapolate from there – this means it’s cheaper for us to offer 10 concurrent users than unlimited concurrent users, or that offering a resource only to grad students and faculty is a lot cheaper than offering it to undergrads as well.
Adding any sort of alumni access would permanently increase our user population year after year and would quickly spiral out of control. I understand it’s frustrating to lose access, but we simply can’t afford it.
Why? Because they would still have to pay for your access even if you have gone to another job that gives you access.
The number of inactive accounts they would continue to pay for would be large!
It’s how they discipline us into getting and keeping jobs but I agree every uni should at minimum have an alumni program that allows library access, even if for a nominal fee. There are alternatives in the seven seas, however.
Here in Germany, everybody can borrow books and access data bases from the library terminals in the library. It’s not exclusive for university members. You just have to go there. No VPN home access.
I just want lifetime email access, or even limited access
Research publishing is a big $$$ business. Thanks to late-stage capitalism in the academia.
Some schools do it. Mine does it.
For libraries, digital costs more than physical. With physical, there is wear and tear that leads to the material needing to be replaced through a new purchase. Since digital does not have that, it’s a completely different fee structure.
NTT faculty also have access to the same digital library as their TT co-workers. I’m also aware of businesses that offer funding to subscribe to journals for individuals in research roles. You can also buy individual access if you want to. There is also the myriad of open access research.
It would certainly be nice if the structure were such to make it easier for more people to access academic research, but it’d be expensive with how things work.
I also think it would be nice and it would have been something that gave me more of a connection to my old university, that I could imagine serving some kind of network purpose. But yeah, it’s all about money and subscription models. Maybe it would be practically possible to have something like a limited-rate pool of alumni-accesses of some sort but I guess the incentive isn’t there.
For independent researchers, the drive towards Open Access helps, and (even legal) sites such as ResearchGate where you can at least easily request copies from authors. And you can always email authors directly to ask for a copy, make their day probably.
I finished my phd 3 years ago and my student creds is still active. I am using it not only for articles that my current uni cant access, but also student discounts.
Cause Elisever is evil.
Academic libraries are charged on the number of users. If we add alumni, we have to pay more, regardless of who’s actually using it.
As it is, database providers raise their prices each year without rhyme or reason, and most academic libraries have to make cuts in subscriptions. Most librarians are already begging admin for a sustainable budget to support the current students and programs.
As for charging a “nominal” fee as someone else suggested, you have no idea how large these databases cost. If we add in extra users and then charge them for access based on their share of the cost, it would be anything but nominal, and most libraries are not staffed at the level to coordinate and offer this service.
You can typically sign up to use public university libraries even if you are a member of the general public. I don’t know how universal it is, but I’m looking at my employer’s policies and it does look like the general public can access journal articles through our library as well. Those that are not freely available online can still be accessed through document delivery.
It sounds like there may be some work involved to set up access, but then you can access it. Not sure how universal this is to other universities.
We recently reviewed our library collection, many many items were costing more than ~NZ$15 per access which is around what an inter library loan costs. So yeah it can add up quickly
I’ll see your library access and raise you a my department won’t even give me a research affiliation anymore. That got me access to the library I even got an affiliation through my hometown university about 10 years ago and they no longer do that either. A lot has changed in the last 5 years
Mine did. Not for everything but for a good deal.
The database subscriptions can be hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars per year. It’s just not feasible to offer free access.
I’m an academic librarian.
The answer is that it’s stupid expensive to maintain access for our current students and faculty, and most vendors will not extend agreements to include everyone who has ever been affiliated with an institution. Some will, at an extra cost, but here’s the thing: my budget is flat. Most resources go up in price 3-5% per year. Adding alumni access to online resources is simply not happening.
However, my university and many others are totally fine if you come on campus to use stuff. We have public computers specifically for that purpose.
It’s the dream 🥲
It’s not about the login, it’s about the cost. Each vendor is an individual license – sometimes multiple licenses depending on the products/university set up.
Where I work, it would be multi-million dollars to provide alumni access, and library budgets are generally not increasing. Ours have been flat for many years, but in libraries – along with other places – a flat budget is a budget cut because access prices increase every year.
That said, for many of our database there is access for walk in users, so alumni can physically come to the library and use them. Some vendors don’t even allow this though.
This is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. I thought access for life to the University’s online databases was a standard practice since it it was done in my “poor” Colombian University. It was only after I went to the UK to do my MA and my PhD that I found out that the standard practice is to be immediately cut off from most services as soon as you graduate.
Our library cost is about $2,000 per user per year.
At my university, everyone can come into our university library and acces everything, including digital sources, for free. You don’t need to be a student, employee, or alumnus for this.
The only thing is that you have to physically show up the library, as off-campus acces to digital sources is only available for students and employees. But everyone can get a library pass and borrow physical items. And if you want acces to digital items you can come to the library, get a free day pass, and use the pc’s there.
On the other hand, why would the institution pay money to increase the number of licences to access material that may not be being actively used by students or those involved in research? Once the PhD is complete and unless you have a role at that institution, they do not benefit by giving you access.
Some do. My university (Edinburgh) where I studied for an MA provides alumni JSTOR access and I’ve had it for years
Motherfucker, they make you pay for parking to get to your own job and you think they’re gonna give you free access after you’re dead to them lol 😂
For independent scholars:
The academic journal industry is one of the biggest scams of our modern era. But nonetheless, i absolutely DON’T recommend that you google “scihub” to find a source for free journal articles after you no longer have university access.
Universities are typically charged by the number of students in their student body. Adding alumni would heavily increase this cost. In addition, most PhD graduates become faculty or researchers for institutions that provide this access.
Cuz $$$$
Everything I’m reading makes me love Sci-Hub even more!
I feel like, in the end, the answer is money. Grad students are always a money suck, even if minimal, because the school pays them. But grad students /are/ students. Graduation changes things, and even if you are the most elite alum, your alma mater is not going to support you financially if they don’t have to.
Dealing with this now! It’s so disheartening. I graduated with my PhD last year.
My R2 public university can’t even afford all the journals we need for current faculty and students!
There are two ethical ways to obtain access to journal articles:
Write one of the authors and ask for a copy;
Steal it.
Paying for it puts you on the side of evil.
The contract with the vendor forbids it. Use the morally dubious solution started by Alexandra Elbakyan if you need a paper.
The same reason that the ebooks that your public library lends to you aren’t permanent in their collection (unlike physical books) but leased from the publisher: money. Those resources are leased, and publishers want to charge per read/er / access.