Just in Time/Just in Case Electronic Publishing Development: are we Going Full Circle with the Customer/Reader in the Driver Seat?

IDEAL, the International Digital Electronic Access Library, is a developmental project of Academic Press that aims to exploit the Internet to greatly expand and improve access to scientific journals. Through licensing agreements with academic or industrial networks, IDEAL brings research journals directly to the end users' digital desktops. IDEAL uses an efficient no-nonsense approach based on an open non-proprietary modular architecture. Starting with the complete 1996 issues of 175 Academic Press journals (and some 1995 issues), an average of over 2000 articles are added every month. Other publishers are being invited to join in the project. To create this IDEAL environment Academic Press has formed an alliance with Fujitsu and its affiliates, who are major international technology providers. Mirrored sites have been established in Europe and the USA, and will later be set up in Japan and elsewhere, in order to insure efficient access from all points on the globe 24 hours per day, 365 days in the year. Anyone with access to the Internet will be able to freely browse and search the IDEAL database of journal tables of contents with any standard Web browser, such as Netscape. Initially, searching of abstracts is also free. Authorized Users at sites within licensed library networks of the project will be able to view, print, and download complete articles in Adobe's Acrobat format without restriction for personal use, course packs, and internal company business purposes. IDEAL is presently building content. Already hundreds of journal issues are available at its two Web sites: http://www.idealibrary.com or http://www.europe.idealibrary.com. Check the current list of available issues at: http://www.apnet.com/www/ap/whatsnew.htm