Just to throw another consideration into the discussion about online
journals as a substitute for print subscriptions -- in addition to the
consideration of guaranteed access to archives, how does migrating your
subscription from print to a vendor such as MD Consult affect your
library's copyright compliance ? Suppose the online access only provides
access to the past 3 years of the journal.  Can you interlibrary loan the
articles in years 4 and 5 as a title your library "subscribes" to or does
it become a "not owned" title ?

The real question is:  does a print subscription equal an online access ?
 I'm not talking about substituting the publishers print subscription for
the publishers online subscription, but rather replacing the publishers
print subscription with a vendor's access to the journal title.  It may
be a fine point but are these equivalent situations ? If not, does it
affect your library's future position in, for example, interlibrary loan
policies (cannot loan from online subscriptions) ?  What might be the
ultimate effect on interlibrary cooperation ?

One way around the problem of guaranteed access to archives for those of
us that obtain microfiche is to continue the fiche purchases -- at least
until the whole situation shakes out.

I don't have the answers, just food for thought...

Linda Schwartz, Librarian
St. Luke's Hospital Allentown Campus
1736 Hamilton Street
Allentown, PA 18104
610-770-8355 (voice) 610-770-8736 (fax)  [log in to unmask]