Electronic Journal Management

The management of electronic journals encompasses many features, including subscription issues, licensing and the provision of access to the electronic journals themselves. Most periodicals provide some type of online access for subscribers, but the form of that access varies significantly, particularly amongst popular and trade-oriented publications. If one counts as electronic journals periodicals that are included in full-text databases, there are further access issues to deal with.

Subscriptions

Print periodical subscriptions either provide free online access or a surcharge for access to the online. It is also possible in many cases to simply have an online-only subscription to a periodical. An online-only subscription brings with it either the need for archival access, in the event the subscription is cancelled, or else a willingness to say goodbye to all the content that you paid for over the years. The ability to continue to access the content online for which you paid after you cancel the journal depends on the publisher. Some will permit access to continue via the publisher's site; others will provide the library with the content on a storage medium such as CD-ROM which can then be networked. Others, such as the Economist, simply cut you off. When faced with the total loss of content, many organizations decide to maintain the print subscription and are still able to provide online access since the print subscription comes with free online access. If the publisher differentiates between personal subscriptions and corporate or institutional subscriptions, then the subscription should be at the institutional rate if you plan to open up online access to the entire organization. If the library has a large journals collection and uses a serials vendor, then the serials vendor will also look after online subscriptions.

Licenses

Most online periodicals are covered by a license - a license that is frequently just quickly scanned and signed without much thought given to the terms and conditions you've just agreed to. Most licenses are from non-Canadian publishers and therefore impose foreign copyright law and make the governing law and legal jurisdiction the publisher's main locale - that is, the license is not governed by Canadian law. Publishers are usually willing to change the wording so that Canadian law is the governing law and that Canadian copyright is the relevant copyright, especially if your organization has a policy that discourages or forbids the organization from entering into contracts that make foreign law the governing law of the license. If the publisher will not agree to make Canadian law the governing law of the license, they usually at least agree to strike the copyright and governing law clauses from the license entirely. A good source for licensing information is the Liblicense website (http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/index.shtml). As well, Lesley Ellen Harris offers online licensing courses through copyrightlaws.com.

Licenses can include restrictions on the dissemination of material from the electronic journal. For example, some titles may not allow a copy of an article to be e-mailed to another employee. If access is via password, make sure you know what the license says about the dissemination of the password. For example, can it be posted on the organization's intranet? License restrictions can also vary depending on the type of access you choose. For example, when a publication offers both free online access with the print subscription as well as a site license for online access, the license governing the former may be more restrictive than the license governing the latter- for example, free with print may mean a single workstation access only. The American Medical Association journals are an example of this sort of license differentiation. The free online access that comes with an AMA print subscription restricts the number of users, does not allow IP authentication, and restricts access to business premises only. On the other hand, the site license provides unlimited users, allows IP authentication, and allows authorized users to access the journal from anywhere in the world, not just at the employee's place of business.

Access considerations

Providing access to electronic journals begins with knowing if online access is available. The print publication, its website, or the publisher's website should state if online access is available. Unfortunately, some publishers only allow personal subscribers to have online access to individual journals. Institutional subscribers are forced to subscribe to the publisher's online service that provides access to all of their journals in one online package. It is usually against licenses to use personal subscriptions to provide online access within an organization. If the collection is large enough that a serials vendor is used, the vendor can let you know which journals come with online access.

What should the point of access be? As most databases allow for linking from a database field to the internet, the logical choice is to access e-journals via the library's catalogue. The catalogue record also offers a convenient place to post any required username and password for accessing the e-journal. However, a separate electronic journals database, or simply a list of them on the library's intranet site, is often appreciated by users, or just simply easier to maintain.

Two choices are available for managing access to electronic journals: username and password or IP authentication. IP authenticated access is best since there is no login procedure provided access occurs on the business premises. The license or subscription information always states if IP access is an option. Personal subscriptions never offer IP access.

Rather than providing access through their own website, some publishers choose to contract out the online version to a third party service (e.g. Ingenta) that hosts e-journals for publishers. Advantages with this model are a standard interface and the ease of dealing with the same customer representative when problems arise rather than dealing with a variety of different interfaces and publishers.

Setting up access can be as simple as being provided with a username and password with your print subscription. Normally though it involves contacting the publisher (via their website) to state you want online access to the journal; reviewing, modifying if needed, and then agreeing to the license; and then activating the online access through the publisher's website. Depending on the publisher/vendor, you may even be able to get usage statistics showing how many times articles from a particular journal have been accessed online.

Maintenance of online journals is different from print journals, but as online journals gained in acceptance, maintenance has eased and publishers have put more resources into supporting e-journals and the customers who use them. For example, links now usually do not change - at least not without significant notice - and the traditional print grace period for subscription renewals also now applies for most e-journals, sparing everyone the sudden loss of online access due to a late subscription cheque.

Taking advantage of the online access offered by publishers improves the productivity of both library staff and library patrons and has the definite potential to increase usage of the library's collection.

Don Taylor is the Electronic Resources Librarian at Simon Fraser University Library.