Harvard libraries are seeking no delay in online access for users. Harvard's letter to the Nature Publishing Group is reproduced below. We would like to hear your comments and concerns. Please feel free to share these with an appropriate individual at your library. Thank you for your patience as Harvard libraries continue to work for reasonable access to Nature online.
Nature is a major publication, used extensively by our faculty.
We had hoped that the on-line version would greatly improve its usefulness by bringing the contents of Nature to our users in a timely manner. However, we find that the terms of the proposed licensing agreement for Nature would do just the opposite. A three-month delay in the availability of some very important parts of the journal represents a major diminution of its value. When we add to this other aspects of the proposed agreement, especially the high cost of the electronic version and the lack of perpetual rights to archive the journal, we believe that it will be very difficult for the Harvard Library to agree to these terms. Much as we value Nature and the Nature monthlies and much as we know our faculty and students would welcome the electronic version, we do not feel we will serve their needs by subscribing to such an inferior version of what might be supplied.