Abstract
: Results of a survey of the level of access provided to selected free scholarly electronic journals by academic libraries is reported. A list of scholarly journals that are available electronically without any access limitations was compiled, and for each title the number of holding institutions on OCLC and its coverage by major abstracting and indexing services was determined. The twenty-five most popular titles, determined by number of holding institutions on OCLC, were searched on a random sample of library websites and catalogs to provide a separate gauge for access levels provided by institutions. Despite approximately half the titles being indexed by major vendors, including 88% of the top twenty-five, access levels were fairly low and decreased dramatically with the size of the institution. The Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society and Journal of Extension provide examples of free ejournals with print counterparts. Approximately ½ and 1/3 of the institutions, respectively, only provide access to the print versions of those journals (and in the latter case, the print version is no longer produced, so no access to the current issues is provided).
Published in:
College & Research Libraries, 61, no. 6 (2000): 500-508
Date of this Version
January 2000