Free scholarly electronic journals: What access do college and university libraries provide?

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 were determined. The twenty-five most popular titles, determined by number of holding institutions on OCLC, were searched on a random sample of library Web sites 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 percent of the top twenty-five, access levels were fairly low and decreased dramatically with size of the institution. The Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society and Journal of Extension provide examples of free e-journals with print counterparts. Approximately one-half and one-third of the institutions, respectively, provide access to only the print versions of these journals (in the latter case, the print version is no longer produced, so access to current issues is not provided).