Acquiring and Managing Electronic Journals. ERIC Digest.

Electronic journals are both a blessing and a curse for libraries. To be meaningful in the current information environment--to meet users' ever-increasing demands--libraries must acquire as many appropriate full text resources as possible, as quickly as possible, and make them easy to use. This Digest provides tips for acquiring and providing access to electronic journals through a library's Web site and online catalog. Web sites and other resources that provide detailed advice on licensing and technical matters are listed at the end of this document. Discussion includes: the importance of staff enthusiasm for maintaining the momentum to solve workflow problems and overcome technical obstacles in managing e-journals; the less immediate benefits of e-journals; library acquisitions; three ways library users approach journals, and the need for libraries to support all these approaches by intelligently choosing their e-journal access approaches; access to e-journals through Web pages and Web-based online catalogs; the database approach for providing access; levels of access; the OpenURL standard; and outsourcing. (Contains 17 references.) (AEF)