Electronic Access and Library Budgets

Carl UnCover and ProQuest Direct are some of the examples of commercial publishE rs providing access to and delivery of journal articles. Carl UnCover was established by Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries and was purchased by Ingenta in March 2000; its content is geared to information needs of research and academic libraries. The release of UnCover Plus is pending; the new database will incorporate the content of both companies available either in print or online. The service provides free search and fax or electronic delivery of articles for a fee. Prices vary according to specifications of individual publishers or subscription levels, pay-per-view, association prices etc. The database covers a variety of disciplines from Agriculture, Arts, Business to Medicine, Chemistry and Social Sciences. It incorporates materials by over 170 publishers and 25,000 publications.

ProQuest Direct was acquired by University Microfilms (UMI) in 1985. Unlike Carl UnCover, it has a broader market of users: from K-12 and higher education to public libraries, government and corporations. It covers a variety of disciplines and publication formats, from sciences, nursing, business to dissertations, magazines, newspapers, out-of-print books and journals. Both search and access to full text articles are free for subscribers. The terms and conditions of contract are usually negotiated by consortia, which considerably reduces subscription fees. Bigger consortia ensure greater discounts for participating members. UWO Libraries, for example, subscribes to ProQuest Direct databases with OCUL (Ontario Council of University Libraries) and OLRN (Ontario Learning Resources for Nursing).

OCLC First Search and JSTOR databases are maintained by non-profit organizations. OCLC First Search is owned by Online Computer Library Center, which serves 42,000 libraries in 82 countries of the world and provides various services -- cataloguing tools, bibliographic records, Dewey Decimal classification etc. First Search incorporates 70 catalogues covering various disciplines (from Arts to Science) and news sources as well as bibliographic records and holdings of participating libraries. It is only available in libraries and equally suitable for academic and public libraries. OCLC has formed a partnership with ALA-accredited LIS schools in Canada, USA and Puerto Rico; it provides a free access to OCLC First Search to students and faculty members. At UWO the access is limited to FIMS faculty and MLIS students.

JSTOR provides solution to storage problems by digitalizing serials' back files. It has an updating provision that protects publishers from lost revenues due to availability of more recent issues. The database contains over a million of articles from 290 journals. The individual pages of each journal are scanned and linked afterwards to a text file generated with optical character recognition software, which facilitates search and retrieval. The articles are delivered to clients as images. JSTOR strongly emphasizes the integrity of the original materials. The database covers Arts, Science, Botany, Ecology and Business journals. The database is accessible from anywhere to subscribers. The pricing for institutional membership is determined by assessment of the institution's size, nature and scale. The database is suitable for academic and larger public libraries as well as independent researchers.

These are just a few examples of databases offering digitalized content to libraries' communities of users. Their presence will be increasingly evident, as more libraries fold into consortia, terms of access become standardized and more funds are allocated for acquisition of electronic materials. These changes in fundamental elements of collection management (i.e. access/ lease replacing ownership) will consequently represent a constant challenge for budgeting. Allocation formulas will need to be periodically reevaluated and flexibility will become an even greater necessity in an increasingly ambiguous economic landscape.