Re: E-Journals in the Era of Print Cancellations

[Scott Wicks <sbw2@cornell.edu>]

Of course, there is also the emerging trend to exploit the electonic
medium and offer electronic access to an enriched resource which has no
true counterpart in print.  I am referring to those resources which offer
a web of hyper connections to other texts as well as incorporating audio,
video, and datafiles.  An earlier reader pointed out the difference in
content where the electronic edition offers something less than the paper
counterpart.

The days of print archives as a solution to the lack of electronic
archives seem to be numbered anyway.  Will it be the added cost factor or
the lack of a mirror medium which effects this change?  Probably both.

--Scott Wicks
Cornell University Library


At 11:48 PM 10/14/98 -0400, you wrote:
>I don't find our STM faculty are aware or worried about the archival
>issue.  They are concerned with the effective use of their time.  Until we
>get a critical mass of journals to look at, issues are archiving are off
>in the future.  Now we librarians have to worry about archiving, but given
>the e-journal animal is still evolving, and appears to be in its infant
>stage, I don't think we can secure any sort of solution yet.
>
>I am assuming that someday in the near future, when librarians are more
>pressed for money than at present, they will decide to cancel the print
>journals.  Of course many bound journals will be bound at the hip to the
>their electric counterparts.  But eventually as libraries subscribe to the
>electronic version only (if they want old issues they will pay document
>delivery charges to libraries someplace on earth that has paper), the
>publishers will start to charge extra for print and the non-equivalent
>(anyway) print version will disappear.
>
>Tony Ferguson, Columbia University