EASY ‐ Electronic Article Supply
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/03055720010804212 |
| Pages | 86-89 |
| Date | 01 September 2001 |
| Published date | 01 September 2001 |
| Author | Ian Stuart,Sam Phillips |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
86 — VINE 124
EASY - Electronic Article
Supply
by Ian Stuart, Lancaster University and
Sam Phillips, ingenta
The Electronic Artic le Supply (EASY) is a
document delive ry project, setting out to test a
system to satisfy inter- library loans from
publisher’s digital versions of articles . A user’s
request for an ILL is screened against digital
holdings in ingenta, if it i s found there, for a
fixed standard fee the request can be satis fied
by the system, directly or subject to approv al
by a librarian.
Introduction
EASY is a two-year document delivery pilot
project run jointly by ingenta and Lancaster
University. The main aim of the project is to test
the feasibility of satisfying inter-library loan
requests direct from publishers’ digital files,
requests which would otherwise have been satis-
fied by either photocopying or scanning by the
supplying library and sent either to the requesting
library or direct to the end-user. The service is not
a separate ILL (Inter Library Loans) service; using
the OpenURL standard it is designed to be inte-
grated with and complement existing ILL services.
The concept is being tested with ILLOS as the
requesting ILL system and ingenta as the supplier.
Hence the project brings together Lancaster’s
widely implemented ILLOS inter-library loan
management system and ingenta’s electronic full-
text document supply service. ingentaJournals now
provides access to over one and a quarter million
articles from over 2,700 titles. The second phase of
the project will consider extending the service
beyond ILLOS and ingenta to other suppliers and
other ILDRMS (Interlending Document Request
Management Systems).
ILL requests are automatically screened for avail-
ability on the ingenta system. If an electronic
version of the document is available from ingenta
but the user’s library does not have a subscription,
then the request is checked to see if it is possible to
purchase an electronic copy. If so, and the user has
appropriate privileges, an electronic copy may be
purchased online at a standard charge of £4.20.
Otherwise the request is referred for authorisation
by ILL staff who can either order the item from
ingentaJournals for electronic delivery to the
user’s desktop or ignore the ingenta availability,
process the request in the normal way and obtain
the item elsewhere. However, the system can be
configured to enable end-users to order items
without mediation by ILL staff. Safeguards are
built into the system to prevent unauthorised
copying and redistribution of electronic copies of
articles.
If the request cannot be satisfied by the ingenta
system, it is passed for ‘normal’ ILL processing.
The project demonstrates three benefits to the
three principal stakeholders (librarians, publishers
and li brary us ers):
Publishers benefit by receiving income from
the supply of EASY articles in response to
ILL requests, whereas otherwise they would
have received none.
Librarians benefit from streamlining of ILL
provision at no greater cost.
Users benefit from rapid delivery of
original-quality copies, which they may
store e lectronica lly if they prefer.
Background to EASY
The future of ILL in the electronic environment
has been a difficult area of discussion between
publishers and librarians. Publishers are concerned
about the risk of illegal copying and redistribution
of elect ronic t ext, and librar ians are concern ed
about the possible loss of the ‘public good’ ele-
ment in copyright legislation which ILL represents.
The PA (Publishers Association) and JISC set up a
working party to consider these matters.
The solution that the PA/JISC working party
recommended was a service in which publishers
were involved (protecting the commercial interest)
and yet which was still cost-effective for libraries
(protecting the public-good interest). The service
would be self-funding. It would provide income to
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