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Discovery, Collections & Systems

Notes and procedures

What is Post-Cancellation Access

Post-cancellation access (PCA) allows for the perpetual, continued ownership of explicitly defined electronic content.

When the library cancels an online journal subscription, we lose access to new content published after the cancellation, but we may retain continued access to content published during the years we had a paid subscription. 

Procedure

  1. Determine whether we have post-cancellation access (see below for EBSCO and other vendors). 
  2. Once post-cancellation access is determined, add a staff note about perpetual access to the title in WMS Collection Manager. 

EBSCO 

  • Log in to EBSCONET 
  • Use Catalog Search to find the title in question – look for the entry that indicates that we have a current or previous subscription & click on the title 
  • Click on the License Details tab 
  • Under Terms of Use, look for Perpetual Access 
  • If perpetual access is granted, our EBSCO customer service representative can correspond with the publisher to ensure access 

Other Vendors

  • Check to see if there is a license in WMS 
  • If the license is available, in most cases post-cancellation access will be covered in the Terms of Use section, under User Access, then Post-Cancellation Access 
  • If post-cancellation access is granted, or if there is not license in WMS, it may be necessary to contact the vendor or publisher directly to ensure access