Electronic journals in academic libraries: a comparison of ARL and non‐ARL libraries
| Pages | 26-45 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07378839910267163 |
| Published date | 01 March 1999 |
| Date | 01 March 1999 |
| Author | Marian Shemberg,Cheryl Grossman |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Introduction
An increasingly important function of academic
libraries today is the provision of information in
electronic formats. Universities continue to be
wired to take advantage of telecommunications
advances, and libraries continue to provide
increased access to products and services avail-
able through these networks, especially the
Internet. Today, libraries are providing electron-
ic access to a wide variety of resources, includ-
ing indexes, full-text articles and complete
journals.
The importance of electronic access can be
shown in the introduction of a continuing publi-
cation, The ARL Directory of Electronic Journals,
Newsletters and Academic Discussion Lists. In
1997, its 7th edition shows that the number of
electronic journal and newsletter publications
has increased from 110 in 1991, to 675 in 1995,
to 3,414 in 1997, an incredible 3000 percent in
less than seven years (Mogge, 1998, p. 2).
In the early 1990s, publishers and universities
explored ways of creating electronic journals that
could be retrieved on the user’s desktop. These
projects, such as Red Sage and TULIP (The
University Licensing Program), “took electronic
publication from an interesting idea to a produc-
tion reality” (Schwarzwalder, 1998). Other
experiments in providing journal content contin-
ue to test the technical and economic issues
involved in producing and marketing electronic
journals. (see for example, Getz, 1997; Institute,
1998; Rowland, 1996; Kluiters, 1996).
With so much attention focused on electronic
access and with conditions changing so rapidly
in technology, we conducted a survey which
looks at the changes that have occurred in
libraries in terms of access to electronic
resources. Though large universities have
experimented with providing publishers with test
26
Electronic journals in
academic libraries: a
comparison of ARL and
non-ARL libraries
Marian Shemberg and
Cheryl Grossman
The authors
Marian Shemberg is an Assistant Professor/Reference
Librarian and Psychology Bibliographer, Education, Human
Ecology, Psychology and Social Work Library, The Ohio State
University, Columbus, OH, USA.
E-mail: shemberg.3@osu.edu
Cheryl Grossman is Head of Technical Services, Education,
Human Ecology, Psychology and Social Work Library, The
Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
E-mail: grossman.4@osu.edu
Keywords
Academic libraries, Electronic publishing, Surveys
Abstract
In late 1997/early 1998, we conducted a survey dealing with
library provision of electronic journals and other electronic
resources. We compared the responses from a census of
Association of Research Libraries (ARL) to a sample of non-
ARL Master’s, Doctoral, and Research institutions. Of the 299
libraries surveyed, 250 surveys were returned for a response
rate of 83.6 percent. Analysis of the responses emphasizes
the number and types of computers available in libraries,
electronic resources in libraries, past and future cancellation
decisions and archiving responsibilities. It was determined
that both ARL and non-ARL libraries offer extensive electronic
services to their constituents. Libraries are beginning to
cancel paper journals in favor of electronic versions. There is
little consensus about who will archive electronic journals.
Library Hi Tech
Volume 17 · Number 1 · 1999 · pp. 26–45
© MCB University Press · ISSN 0737-8831
The authors with to express their appreciation and
gratitude to Robert M. Leighty, Manager, Statistical
Consulting Service, at The Ohio State University,
and Dionne Swift, MS in Statistics and PhD candi-
date, for all of their help on our survey, including
assisting us with the statistical analysis. They also
wish to thank The Ohio State University Libraries’
Advisory Committee on Research for providing
partial funding for this survey. Thanks also to Patrick
Ragains for reading an early draft of this paper, and
for his valuable and encouraging comments.
sites for publishing their journals electronically,
these projects have terminated. We were curious
to see what academic libraries are offering today
and what they anticipate offering in the future.
For this study, nearly 300 libraries in the
USA were surveyed about their provision of
electronic access to their users. Survey ques-
tions focused on those library practices which
directly affect the user. Libraries were queried
about access to electronic journals, the number
of computers available to users in the library,
other electronic services offered, options for
retrieval of articles, cancellations of paper jour-
nals, archiving issues, and evaluation plans.
Background
The potential of computers to transform schol-
arly communications has been studied for some
time. As long ago as 1975 the Electronic Infor-
mation Exchange System (EIES) in the USA
and later, the BLEND project in the UK experi-
mented with providing a rich computer-based
environment for scholarly intercourse. A variety
of formal and informal discussion groups,
newsletters, and electronic journals were estab-
lished within small communities of scholars. In
both experiments, however, technical and social
factors inhibited the successful launch of elec-
tronic journals (Naylor and Geller, 1995).
Some of the reasons why electronic journals
did not succeed at that time include:
• Inadequate telecommunications networks
(locally, nationally and internationally);
“inadequate in capacity, transmission speed,
robustness and quality of reception” (e.g.
110 to 300 baud modems).
• Scholars were not linked to networks.
• Standardization of hardware and software
was not implemented.
• Scholarly publications were still printed by
conventional methods – not by machine-
readable files.
• Academic libraries usually did not have
computerized OPACs; the cataloging sys-
tems that were computerized were often
incompatible with other software and were
not linked to networks outside the library.
• “Problems due to the increase in subscription
prices of printed journals [had] not yet
reached crisis proportions” (Rowland, 1996,
p. 226).
By the early 1990s, the academic environment
had changed. The Internet existed; universities’
networks were improving; scholars were using
computers, especially e-mail; standards were
developing; publications began to be typeset
from the author’s disk, creating both paper and
electronic formats from the same output; schol-
ars became interested in the exchange of infor-
mation electronically; and a crisis in library
budgets for serials had been reached (Rowland,
1996, p. 227). Factors including less robust
higher education budgets, rapidly escalating
print journal costs, and the proliferation of new
journal titles have and continue to place pres-
sure on library budgets (Hirshon, 1997).
Librarians and other academics began to look at
electronic journals as a partial solution to the
continuing “serials crisis”.
By 1997, users had become adept at and
comfortable with accessing information elec-
tronically. E-mail is now a common, if not
preferred, method for communicating with
often geographically dispersed colleagues.
Electronic indexes have become the preferred
method for article citation retrieval, and
libraries are providing journal articles and other
resources electronically.
For purposes of this study, electronic jour-
nals may be scholarly journals, popular maga-
zines, newsletters, or newspapers. These may
be:
• electronic only;
• electronic only versions of a former print
journal (e.g. JSTOR); or
• parallel publishing of electronic and print.
Journals may be available through CD-ROM,
online, or through networks, such as the Inter-
net. Electronic journals can be free, pay-by-
subscription, pay-per-use, or licensed for access
rights. They can be mounted and stored locally,
or accessed from a remote site (Nisonger, 1996,
p. 233). To this we add full-text articles, which
may be accessed through an indexing service.
Most of the elements that prevented success-
ful adoption of electronic journals by academic
libraries appear to have been overcome. We now
have sufficient content, access to reasonably fast
networks, wide distribution of easy-to-use
software and hardware, and a user base that is
familiar with, if not totally accepting of, elec-
tronic resources. Our survey was intended to
27
Electronic journals in academic libraries
Marian Shemberg and Cheryl Grossman
Library Hi Tech
Volume 17 · Number 1 · 1999 · 26–45
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