So we have decided to get the Legacy Content for the American Journal of Physiology. For the bargain price of $2000 we have access to all of their content back to 1898. The nice thing about this is that price is a one time fee. You pay it and you have access, there are no yearly subscription fees, no maintenence fees. It is a you bought you own it kind of a deal. I love the simplicity in that, I wish more publishers could do it this way.

Nature Publishing offers their back files online. However their content only goes back to 1987 and you are required to pay, a base fee (based on the total FTE institutional employees) + ongoing annual access fee. Yuck! that doesn't very simple or predictable. There is no idea what your base fee is because that is a magical number (that they have) based off of the total number of FTE's in your institution. So your food service workers are considered readers in this pricing model.

Of course then there are journals like the Journal of Biological Chemistry. JBC makes all of its content freely available after one year. Right now that means content from October 1905 through October 2003 is free to anyone. What is even nicer is that JBC also In Press papers are also free!

There are many access models being used by publishers for online access to the back issues. That is why you often see those responsible for online journals off in a corner rocking back and forth mumbling themselves. Because it is very hard to keep up with the industry and just when you think you have got it, they throw something new at you.