Electronic Journals, Problem or panacea?

Judith Edwards, Tel: 0171 380 7833     j.a.edwards@ucl.ac.uk     (Assistant Librarian, University College London Library,)

Ariadne 1997
(ReLIS:doi:doiari:y:1997:i:10:p:6)

Abstract:

Most staff and students in UK higher education now have online access to hundreds of academic journals, thanks to the HEFCs Pilot Site Licence scheme. Many more journals are also available in electronic form, access to which must be negotiated separately. The total number of electronic journals is now so large that the most ostrich-like of librarians can no longer ignore them. A recent posting to lis-elib maintained that "There will be 3000+ e-journals based on existing publications alone (i.e. parallel print/e-journals) by the end of this year (until now we have been talking about 100s)". I shall discuss here some of the problems encountered in trying to provide access to all this material - I wish I could also provide the solutions! The Universities Science and Technology Librarians Group discussed the topic at a meeting in March 1996, and I'm grateful to my colleagues for the long list of problems raised then.

Note: Judith Edwards outlines some of the problems faced by academia in the acquisition and provision of electronic journals. This article appears in the Web, and not the print, version of Ariadne.
Month: Tuesday July 15th, 1997
Year: 1997

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