"Archiving" e-journals

[Bill Pardue]

Naturally, we have to decide what's worth saving and what's worth 
passing up.  However, there are some cases where we clearly don't want 
to lose the documents.  I'm at a sci-tech library, and there's 
clearly a revolution in sci-tech publishing based around the advent 
of the e-journal.  "Real research" (forgive the loaded term) is 
appearing in e-journals and in some cases, e-journals are even 
getting indexed (don't ask me for an example off the top of my 
head!).  The revolution is not simply in delivery method, but  in 
format.  We can't just print it off and retain the original value of 
the document.

So, no, we don't want to be indiscriminate about what we save, but 
neither do we want to deny completely the value of archiving 
e-journals in an academic library.  Ideally, I'd like to see a 
central "repository" of e-journals, but that still won't solve 
certain problems.  Consider having a subscription to a repository 
service of, say 20 e-journals.  You pay...oh...$2,000 per year for 
the service.  Hard budgetary times hit.  You cut the $2,000.  With a 
paper subscription, you still have the copies on shelf.  Will the 
e-journal provider still allow you access to all the journals that 
were available before the date you ended your subscription?  If not, 
then all the money put towards that service has added up to nothing 
after the subscription ends.  We need not only to guarantee access, but 
continued access, especially to resources that clearly fall within 
the scope of our collection criteria.

--Bill Pardue
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Bill Pardue, Electronic Resources Librarian
          Paul V. Galvin Library
      Illinois Institute of Technology
pardue at charlie.acc.iit.edu     312-567-3615
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