From: lib1p@jane.uh.edu (Tammy Stark Blandino)
Subject: Re: Back Files of Pagan Publications
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 13:09:00 GMT

In article <1bd47dINN216@stanley.cis.Brown.EDU>, SL500000@brownvm.brown.edu (Robert Mathiesen) writes...
>This is a pretty good idea, Pegasus.  What's needed is not only an index,
>but a location where the back files will be securely held and made available
>for copying.  One small problem is that ILL will not now allow one site to
>ask for more than a small number of articles from any given periodical in
>any one year (copyright worries).  It might be better if instead the back
>files were microfilmed and the microfilms available for borrowing.  Most ILL
>libraries have printers for making hard copies from microfilms.  Indexing
>alone is not the answer.  --
> 
>The fullest back files that I've heard of are Gordon Melton's, at his In-
>stitute for the Study of American Religion (University of California at
>Santa Barbara).  Are you reading this, Gordon?  If so, are you interested
>in such a project?  -- Robert
> 
>Robert Mathiesen, Brown University, SL500000@BROWNVM

Actually, as long as the publisher gives its permission or sets a
copyright fee, you can copy as many as you want.  It is the right of
any ILL office to set its policies.  Since most ILL offices are 
undersupported, underfunded, and understaffed, most do not have the
funds to pay copyright compliance fees.  This is why many of them 
cut off the number of articles you can get from a single issue.
Note that it relates only to a single issue.

The laws on this are quite vague at the moment.  Basically you
can copyright up to about 5 articles from any issue under the fair
use clause, meaning that it is used for educational or research
purposes and not for money making purposes.  Five is not set in
stone, but what has been recommended.  Generally, after 5 articles
you start paying copyright compliance on every article after that.

Publishers range into approximately three categories: Those who 
charge no fee, those who charge a minimal fee, those who charge
and exorbitant fee.  Also there are those who will not allow for
copying *at all*.

I feel that the idea of microfilming these publications is a good
thing.  However, housing them and managing them will cost quite
a bit and that is not counting the cost of filming itself.  Also
I think that it would be better to make them into microfiche.
Fiche is easier to handle, easier to store, and you can make
fiche-to-fiche prints rather cheaply allowing for greater sharing.

This sounds like a major project.  It would be better to get a 
team of people and a grant from the government to do this.  If
this is the path that is decided upon you might want to expand
it to cover all "alternative religions" meaning those not in
the J-C-I circle.  This would cover such things as Native American,
Hindu, Buddism, various Pagan factions, etc.

Getting a bit larger than expect, huh?  Well that's the way these
things start.  It would be "good work" I think.  Another option
is to get permission from publishers to reproduce electronically,
but that is another subject.

Tammy
Newsgroups: alt.pagan