To have and to hold

Much though there is some decorative value in shelves of books, I don't think the same could be said of magazines.  In both cases, the value exists in the content, and the renewed efforts of the Gramophone team to make the digital edition available is welcome in providing searching and ease of access to the entire content without requiring all that shelf space, denuding rainforest and so on.

But there is a consequence to the way this facility is implemented that is undesirable.  If I buy the magazine in paper format, I have that for as long as I want to keep it.  It costs me no more and I require no additional equipment or services to read it again and again.  The same is not true of a subscription to an online journal: if I cancel my subscription or am without access to the internet, I can no longer read those journals that were once available to me. 

I realise the business case for keeping customers paying forever to get access to the library, and I understand that providing a paper plus digital format allows the shelf-stealing properties of the Gramophone content to be maintained should I have that space available.  What I would like to see is the type of facility offered by for example the IEEE (of which I am a member) where the full archive of each journal to which a member subcribes is avilable as pdf, epub, mobi and other formats so it is possible to retain a long term (and portable to aircraft etc.) limited library of my own that is not restricted by my subscription.  Further, for many jornals it is possible for this subscription to be "digital only" so I get the benefit of reading back issues and current journals on a tablet, laptop, smart tv or desktop computer without the additional burden of paper.

I don't see (but I might have missed it) that the Gramaphone Digital Library is working this way, but for me, I would see this as a great advantage.  Is anything of this form available for the Gramophone or is digital access always subject to subscription and accompanied by paper for those of us who want to look back from time to time?

Mark.