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This case study aims to demonstrate how proactive use of KBART guidelines can assist librarians in the analysis and restoration of journal titles with post-cancellation perpetual access.

After experiencing a 25-per cent decrease in the collection budget, the Queens College Libraries (QCL) faced losing electronic journal content with cancellations to Big Deal licensing agreements. By using tools such as Serials Solutions, Ex Libris SFX and Microsoft Excel, the library was able to optimize KBART guidelines to analyze and restore journal titles under perpetual access licensing clauses. The implemented workflow mirrored the process to create “Big Deal” renewal spreadsheets at Springer Science + Business Media.

By using KBART guidelines to manipulate and analyze data, the library was efficiently able to identify journal titles for perpetual access. Because the resulting data were formatted within KBART guidelines, it could then be transferred to a knowledge base for enhanced content discovery.

While there are numerous variations on perpetual access rights across hundreds of vendors, the workflow developed at QCL can be replicated, or altered on a case-by-case basis. By highlighting the work necessary to implement perpetual access clauses, this article makes a case for both standardizing licensing clauses as well as increased vendor adoption of KBART guidelines.

This case study examines the workflow of an Electronic Resources librarian with vendor experience, the overlap of concerns between librarians and vendors, and the ways in which to analyze journal holdings without an automated system.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss whether preprint servers are a disruptive technology for science, librarians or information seeking among the general population.

This column explores what preprint servers are, how they are used in the world of science, how their usage changed in response to the deluge of COVID-19 related research papers and how they might impact the work of librarians and society in general.

Preprint servers are not a highly disruptive technology, but they do challenge both scientists and librarians to understand them better, use the information they find on them with care and educate society in general on topics such as peer review and the importance of using well-vetted, good quality science in making important decisions.

Up until the past year and a half, only a small segment of the librarian profession needed to be concerned with preprint servers. With the increasing presence of references to non-peer-reviewed articles from preprint servers in popular media reports, most librarians now need to know something about this technology. It is also useful to consider how the technology might benefit and create challenges for their work.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the benefits of integrating a digital preservation system into the library as a way to ensure uninterrupted access to e‐journals and e‐books.

This paper introduces the concept of a digital preservation system, and shows how it can made to benefit end‐users through a simple integration with the online pubic access catalogue (OPAC), to ensure continuous access to a library's e‐journals and e‐books.

A digital preservation system ensures that libraries continue to have access to on‐line assets once a subscription is cancelled or the publisher discontinues access. It extends the traditional library model of print journals and books on the shelf to encompass digital media. Providing end‐user access to preserved content can be simplified by integrating the online public access catalogue (OPAC) with the digital preservation system through a link resolver. End‐users can access the preserved content using an interface they already know, and the integration guards against publisher outages to provide continuous access to the library's digital collection.

The techniques shown in this paper can be extended to integrating digital preservation systems with other library systems.

This paper illustrates a simple way for the library to ensure that end‐users have un‐interrupted access to digital assets, even if it is necessary to cancel a subscription or there is a temporary disruption in service from the publisher.

Librarians need to measure returns on the investments that they make, and for digital content, the COUNTER Code of Practice for usage statistics is an important metric. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper is a viewpoint.

Release 5 of the Code of Practice has been developed to make it easier for publishers to be compliant. It can be adapted and extended as digital publishing changes over the years.

Release 5 consists of four master reports, a reduced number of metrics and additional attributes. These will enable librarians to roll up or drill down through reports with ease, eliminating the need for the kinds of special-purpose reports required previously.