The following statement from the Association of Subscription Agents and Intermediaries describes what ASA members believe to be appropriate activities and periods of time in the context of gracing for both online and print journals.
(i) Gracing is strongly supported by subscription agents because it accommodates the imperfect nature of the acquisition process - for example, consortia, multi-site and even single institute negotiations with publishers can be protracted; library budgets may be delayed under certain circumstances; publishers may be late with their pricing information etc..
(ii) Although agents generally do not favour 'forcing' publishers into a particular standard gracing period, two months seems to be the consensus regarding what is reasonable; some agents believe this could be extended to three months (or more) under certain circumstances and at the discretion of the publisher. In all cases, the publisher should communicate their intention to continue graced access, and their understanding of the reason/s this is needed, clearly and promptly both to libraries and to agents.
(iii) Gracing enables libraries filing unavoidably late renewals to continue providing a service to their patrons and not waste time with claims which would equally consume publisher resources to little benefit.
(iv) With print subscriptions, we recommend publishers have a clear policy about whether or not they routinely retro-start subscriptions (i.e. where the publisher sends the January issue for an order received in February). The majority of publishers have a policy but some do not.
(v) Publishers who are too quick to switch off access will frustrate and alienate their customers. In extreme cases, or instances where there are alternative suppliers (e.g. document delivery, aggregation services) they may lose them altogether. Such a result is never welcome, particularly so in the present economic climate.