About APA Publications & Databases

APA Archiving and Access Policy for Electronic Databases

Archiving by APA
APA is committed to preserving the knowledge base in psychology and to serving user and customer needs. To ensure preservation of the knowledge base, APA maintains a digital archive of all databases and will convert that archive as technology changes.

Access to Data
APA recognizes the business needs of libraries and other customers to retain potential access to content for which they have purchased current access. APA’s annual data fees cover current content. As a courtesy to customers and users, APA provides at least 10 years of older content without additional fees during the period of time the customer pays for a site license. If, at a later date, a customer does not renew the site license, they will retain rights to access all content added to the database in the years from the first actual year through the last year for which they paid data fees, without paying additional data fees. If the customer desires access to content files from years prior to the years in which they paid, APA will make those files available for a fee.

Delivery of Data
APA is committed to providing customers options for delivery for site licenses. In general, those options include customer loading, access through several vendors, or access directly from APA, and there is a separate cost for delivery. The customer who has stopped paying for an annual site license may also choose one of these options for the segment of content for which they retain rights. Although they would not pay ongoing data fees, they would pay for the delivery of the content.

This policy will apply to all APA-owned content. As APA negotiates contracts with other content owners, the association will encourage those owners to agree to the same terms as part of their participation in the database.

Example:
Customer pays annual access and data fees for a database for 10 years. In the eleventh year the customer does not renew access. At that point they retain rights to get access to content APA published during the 10 years in which they paid both data and access fees. If they wish to get access to data published in prior years, they may pay a separate data fee. Delivery of the content entails a separate fee, just as it does with annual licenses.

March 2005