Electronic Journals:
Promises and Challenges for Academic Libraries

Heting Chu
Palmer School of Library & Information Science
Long Island University/C.W. Post Campus
Brookville, NY 11548-1300, USA.
E-mail: hchu@liu.edu


ABSTRACT: A questionnaire was mailed to ninety-five major academic libraries in the United States to explore how serials librarians would respond to the booming of electronic journals (e-journals). Fifty librarians (52.6%) answered the survey with one follow-up. The study found that over 70% of the libraries that returned the survey had participated in e-journal related activities. Among all the reasons listed in the questionnaire, those relating to "access" were consistently ranked high in explaining why librarians in major academic libraries think e-journals are valuable. Yet, "cost" seems to be a critical factor in determining e-journal adoption. As for the extent of e-journals in the libraries surveyed, the figure appears modest although some of the institutions claimed having more than 1100 titles in their e-journal collections.


Introduction

Electronic journals (e-journals) are mushrooming -- online, on the Web and in CD-ROM format. This phenomenon is due to the rapid advancement of information technologies including the Internet and digitizing techniques. The quantity of e-journals is growing larger and larger although no exact number is available. In recent years, many more journals have been earmarked for digitizing, a necessary process for turning a paper journal (p-journal) into an electronic one. In addition, a considerable number of journals are now published only electronically, which significantly enlarges the size of the e-journal pool. Among all the users of e-journals, academic libraries especially, are increasingly concerned about how they should deal with those publications because they are the major subscribers of scholarly journals.

Faced with the e-journal boom, how would and should academic libraries respond? Related to this issue are many more questions that need to be addressed. For example, to what extent are American academic libraries adopting e-journals? What are the major reasons for academic libraries to subscribe to e-journals? What is the rationale for not doing so? The present writer attempts to answer the above questions via a survey conducted in the United States.

I. Previous Studies

Librarians, over the years, have faced significant and continual changes in serials acquisitions. Compounding the problem has been the introduction of the electronic version of the serial. In order to help colleagues to cope with this problem, Aston outlined some policies and criteria for selecting electronic materials (e.g., CD-ROM and e-journals).1 As e-journals are eventually becoming incorporated into library serials/periodicals departments, researchers began to weigh the pros and cons associated with such publications.2-7 Some of the authors expressed concerns over the question whether e-journals can offer any solutions to the journal "crisis".8-9

Hawkins as well as Bailey described in their publications both pioneer e-journal titles and major e-journal projects (e.g., TULIP -- The University LIcensing Program).10-11 Hunter and her co-workers gave a detailed account of their TULIP experience, summarizing, among other things, the lessons learned and its implications for publishers as well as libraries.12 McMillan depicted how Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University tried to integrate five e-journals into its library processes and procedures.13 Since 1991, Virginia Tech's practices may very well have changed as the Web has become the most popular platform for accessing and delivering e-journals. More recently, Lancaster surveyed directors of university libraries and other academic administrators to determine their attitudes toward feasibility and desirability of networked scholarly publishing, including e-journals. The major conclusion of the study was that academia was neither prepared nor equipped to undertake an enterprise of this kind.14 However, the conclusion may have become invalid due to the positive changes and advancement made in the academia since then.

A large percentage of the studies dealing with e-journals are about their role and function in scholarly communications.15-16 For example, Bishop presented her research on how e-journals were assessed from the reader's perspective. She found that users indicated a preference for e-journals.17 Taking a more general approach, Metz discussed the revolutionary change that e-journals had brought or would bring to scholarly and scientific communications.18 In addition, researchers began to examine the impact of e-journals on daily library operations such as serials acquisitions and collection development.19-20

E-journals have indeed become a quite visible entity in serials publications. Yet, how would academic libraries in the United States respond to the rapid and continuing growth of e-journals? In early 1994, the Systems and Procedures Exchange Center (SPEC) of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) conducted a survey on electronic journals among ARL libraries. The survey covered a wide range of topics and issues, including acquisitions policies, gopher access, training documents, and impact on journal management.21-22 While the two-volume survey report is extensive and informative, it is not conclusive. So the present writer prepared the following survey, aiming to provide more focused and up-to-date answers to the three questions raised in the previous section. Namely, 1) To what extent are American academic libraries adopting e-journals? 2) What are the major reasons for academic libraries to subscribe to e-journals? 3) What is the rationale for not doing so?

II. The Survey

According to the member list for the Association of Research Libraries (http://www.arl.org/members.html), there are ninety-five libraries located in the United States, that are affiliated with an academic institution. These libraries became the subject libraries for this survey. To ensure a reasonable response rate, the survey was addressed to individual librarians in charge of serials/periodicals departments. However, this proved to be an arduous task. It was simply not easy to locate the contact information of appropriate individuals for free.

Fifty librarians returned the survey with one follow-up, totaling a response rate of 52.6%. Of the fifty returned surveys, several are incomplete as not all the questions asked in the questionnaire were answered. However, the incomplete ones would have little impact on the study since their number is relatively small, and the findings of the study will not be generalized.

III. Results and Discussion

SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) and Microsoft Excel were used for data analysis purposes. The results and discussion are to be presented under the following subheadings.

Reasons and Challenges for Adopting E-Journals

In the survey, various reasons and challenges for adopting e-journals at academic libraries were given with the option of adding more. Librarians who participated in the survey were asked to check as many reasons as applicable. The added reasons given by some of the respondents when they were completing the survey are shown in italic. Table 1 and Table 2 summarize the outcomes.

Table 1. Reasons for Adopting E-Journals in Academic Libraries
Frequency
(N=50)
%
Reasons for Adopting E-Journals
49
98
Allow remote access
47
94
Can be used simultaneously by more than one user
44
88
Provide timely access
43
86
Support searching capabilities
43
86
Accommodate unique features (e.g., links to related items)
38
76
Save physical storage space
27
54
Contain multimedia information
1
2
Do not require physical processing, e.g., receiving and binding
1
2
Can be environmentally valuable
1
2
Can be saved digitally

It is obvious from Table 1 that "Allow remote access" is the reason that most explains why e-journals are useful to academic libraries. Followed closely is the reason labeled as "Can be used simultaneously by more than one user". The third most relied-upon reason for adopting e-journals is that they "Provide timely access". All three highly rated reasons deal with the accessibility aspect of journal collections, indicating the importance of easy and convenient access in the library environment.

In addition to the top three ranking factors, "Support searching capabilities" and "Accommodate unique features such as links to related items" are also important factors in the adoption of e-journals by academic libraries. Besides, the advantage of saving physical storage space and the availability of multimedia information also seems to be non-negligible factors contributing to the value of e-journals. In addition, e-journals generally do not require physical processing (e.g., receiving and binding). They are environment-friendly. They can be saved digitally. These features, though maybe explaining just marginally why e-journals can be preferable from the viewpoint of librarians, are unavailable to their paper counterparts - p-journals.

Table 2 shows that adopting e-journals would "Incur great expense particularly in the beginning of implementation" takes the lead among the challenges specified in the survey. "Need special equipment" and "Lack compatibility among different publishers" are affirmed by the respondents as two very challenging factors in having e-journals. As more and more e-journals are published on the Web which is a popular, client/server-based as well as platform independent technology, the challenges the three factors brought may be reduced to a certain degree. But by no means they will diminish.

Other factors such as "Require promotion and training", and "Cause more concern about copyright" are also cited by the survey respondents as the major challenges for handling e-journals. The relatively greater difficulty in browsing e-journals than p-journals, the lack of sufficient journal and time coverage, the possibility of excessive printing, and the extra resources needed for integrating e-journals with p-journals appear to constitute more obstacles to a wider adoption of e-journals by academic libraries. Furthermore, several librarians pointed out that, even though not listed in the survey, "archiving" and "complex licensing agreements" seem to be of grave concern when they consider whether e-journals should be acquired for their institutions. Indeed, these two issues have received substantial attention in the past few years.23-24

Table 2. Challenges in Dealing with E-Journals in Academic Libraries
Freq.
(N=50)
%
Challenges in dealing with E-Journals
28
56
Incur great expense particularly in the beginning of implementation
25
50
Need special equipment
24
48
Lack compatibility among different publishers
24
48
Require promotion and training
24
48
Cause more concern about copyright
22
44
Are more difficult to browse than paper journals
22
44
Do not have sufficient journal and time coverage yet
19
38
Result in excessive printing
11
22
Are hard to be incorporated with paper journals
6
12
Raise concern about archiving
4
8
Require complex licensing agreements
2
4
Need technical support
1
2
Are hard to cite because they are constantly changing
1
2
Are not portable
1
2
Are hard to find

In comparison with Table 1, frequencies tallied in Table 2 appear smaller partly because more items are enumerated for explaining why not adopting e-journals. Also people tended to be more selective when they answered this question. There are three librarians who did not answer this question at all, as they believed that none of the listed challenges reflected their thinking.

In addition to frequency counting, the present author also asked the librarians to rank three reasons they had checked from the lists with "1" being the highest. As shown in Table 3, the reason "Allow remote access" again tops the ranking, leaving a wide margin to other reasons recorded in that group. The other two access related reasons, i.e., "Provide timely access" and "Can be used simultaneously by more than one user" indicate once more that easy access is the most important issue in having e-journals in libraries. In comparison, p-journals are only available at institutions that physically hold them, with a publishing time lag of various lengths, and to one user a time.

Table 3. Ranking of Reasons for Adopting E-Journals
Rank 1
(N=50)
Rank 2
(N=50)
Rank 3
(N=50)
Reasons for Adopting E-Journals
28
11
6
Allow remote access
11
11
8
Provide timely access
3
14
12
Can be used simultaneously by more than one user
3
5
5
Accommodate unique features (e.g., links to related items)
3
4
11
Support searching capabilities
1
    Don't require physical processing, e.g., receiving and ...

3
6
Save physical space
 
1
1
Contain multimedia information

Another point that should be made based on Table 3 is that "Support searching capability" was not ranked very high among the reasons for adopting e-journals. This is somewhat contrary to what the current researcher had anticipated. One possible explanation for this fact could be that searching capability does not appear indispensable in the present magnitude that e-journals hold although it would become a valuable feature for e-journals in the future.

The ranking in Table 4 also denotes that "expense" presents the biggest challenge amongst all in dealing with e-journals. This particular ranking actually conforms to the cold reality many academic libraries face: the shrinking journal budget and the accelerating journal price. Moreover, the electronic format and subsequently the complex licensing issue would only incur additional cost to the subscribers. Compared with the top ranking challenge, all others were evaluated much less prominent. Nevertheless, a couple of respondents commented that there was no option or overriding reason for not adopting e-journals. In other words, e-journals will evolve and get integrated into library collections regardless.

Table 4. Ranking of Challenges in Dealing with E-Journals
Rank 1
(N=50)
Rank 2
(N=50)
Rank 3
(N=50)
Challenges in Dealing with E-Journals
17
2
5
Incur great expense particularly in the beginning of ...
6
7
4
Need special equipment
5
2
5
Require promotion and training
4
4
4
Cause more concern about copyright
4
1
6
Are more difficult to browse than paper journals
3
1
  Raise concern about archiving
2
 
1
Require complex licensing agreements
1
10
3
Don't have sufficient journal and time coverage yet
1
8
6
Lack compatibility among different publishers
 
3
1
Are hard to be incorporated with paper journals
 
2
3
Result in excessive printing
   
1
Need technical support

Participation in Activities Related to E-Journals

As a marketing and promotion method, e-journal publishers often send sample copies to target libraries. Of the forty-seven libraries that answered the questions about e-journal trials, thirty-seven (79%) received sample e-journals (Table 5). Moreover, all the libraries that had received sample e-journals tried them, which suggests that at least librarians in those academic libraries tend to be very receptive to changes and new developments in the field.

Table 5. Participation in Activities Relating to E-Journals
E-Journal
Related Activities
Yes
No
Missing Case
 
#
%
#
%
 
Received any sample e-journals?
37
79
10
21
3
Tried any sample e-journals?
37
100
N/A
N/A
3
Participation in e-journal projects?
37
77
11
23
2

It is widely known that projects such as TULIP, CORE (Chemistry Online Retrieval Environment), and JSTOR (Journal STORage) have been conducted to test and explore, both technically and non-technically, the feasibility of e-journal implementation in recent years. Therefore, a question was specifically included in the survey to find out if academic libraries had participated in such programs. It turns out that thirty-seven (77%) institutions among the forty-eight libraries that replied to the survey question took part in at least one e-journal project despite the short history and limited scope of such endeavors. Overall, the academic libraries surveyed in this study have shown great enthusiasm for e-journals.

Size of E-Journal Collections

As more and more e-journals are published, how many of the titles are actually finding their way into library journal collections? Table 6 may provide a partial answer to the above question.

Table 6. Number of E-journals in the Libraries Surveyed
Size of E-Journal Collection
# of Libraries
% of Libraries
< 100
8
16
100-250
13
26
300-400
12
24
450-900
3
6
1100-4000
6
12
Missing data
8
16
Total:
50
100

Thirty-three (66%) out of the forty-two libraries that furnished data on this question have less than 400 e-journal titles. Among them, eight (amounting to 16% of the total) libraries subscribe to less than 100 e-journals; thirteen (26%) subscribe to 100-250 titles, while twelve (24%) have an e-journal collection of 300-400 titles. It is worth noting that six (12%) of the forty-two institutions claimed that the size of their e-journal collections exceeded 1000 or even reached 4000 titles. The huge number may include titles covered in full-text databases such as InfoTrac or third party aggregators of e-journals like OCLC's ECO (Electronic Collection Online).

As for the cases of missing data, some respondents stated that this data for their libraries was not available mainly because of two reasons: 1) It seemed unclear to them whether full-text titles included in databases like InfoTrac could be counted as e-journals; and 2) they did not compile such data.

Table 7 lists the approximate size of p-journal collections in the academic libraries under consideration. A correlation analysis indicates that little association exits between e-journal size and p-journal size (r = 0.08, p = 0.63). That is to say, the size of p-journals for a library appears to have little impact on its size of e-journals.

Table 7. Number of P-Journals in the Libraries Surveyed
Size of P-Journal Collection
# of Libraries
% of Libraries
< 10,000
18
36
10,000 - 13,000
22
44
18,000 - 30,000
8
16
Missing Data
2
4
Total:
50
100

More Elaboration on E-journals in Academic Libraries

About one-third of the survey respondents made comments in addition to answering the 9 questions listed in the questionnaire. Their comments can be briefly summarized as follows:

One respondent even suggests that libraries wait for e-journals to develop and mature before adopting them. Indeed, e-journals are a new species in the serials family. The library community needs time to get to understand, accept, or even welcome them. But the process for this diffusion of innovation would not take long as we know that librarians are and should be the "innovators" and "early adopters" in Roger's model.25
 

IV. Concluding Remarks

While reasons relating to "access" in the survey were consistently ranked high in explaining why librarians in major academic libraries think e-journals are valuable, "cost" remains to be the most significant factor in journal acquisitions even if the journal form has changed from paper to electronic. The size of e-journal collections in some libraries included in this survey appears impressive. However, e-journals have not yet constituted a critical mass with respect to the entire collection both in terms of title and time coverage mainly due to the reason concerning publishers. Overall, the academic libraries surveyed in this study have shown great enthusiasm for e-journals.

Given the small number of academic libraries included in the survey and the fact that the libraries were not randomly selected, the findings of this study cannot be generalized. Nevertheless, the findings could be consulted and utilized by concerned parties for devising future plans with regard to e-journals. For example, publishers need to re-consider their fee schedules and licensing agreements in order to attract more libraries to adopt e-journals. On the other hand, libraries could develop new strategies for acquiring and handling e-journals since they are truly more accessible than p-journals.

More studies will be needed to further explore implications of e-journals for libraries in general and academic libraries in particular, and approaches for managing more e-journals that are now mainly published on the Web. Despite the challenges that e-journals bring us, they also possess many features valuable to librarians as well as patrons. The trend seems to be that e-journals will sooner or later become part of the serials collection in our libraries, either physically or virtually.
 

Acknowledgement

The author wishes to thank Ellen Emmett, librarian in the Library & Information Science Library at Long Island University, for her comments on the survey instrument. The author is also indebted to Sheila Fox, the author's graduate assistant, who reviewed an earlier version of this paper and helped locating contact information of the 95 librarians included in the survey.
 

References

1.  Jennefer Aston, "The Selection Dilemma," The Law Librarian 2, no. 4 (1996):238-41.

2.  Charles W. Bailey, Jr., "Network-based Electronic Serials," Information Technology and Libraries 11, no. 1 (1992): 29-35.

3.  Les Hawkins, "Network Accessed Scholarly Serials," The Serials Librarian 29, no. 3/4 (1996):19-31.

4.  Thomas B. Hickey, "Present and Future Capabilities of the Online Journal," Library Trends 43, no. 4 (1995):528-43.

5.  Snadeep Junnarkar, "Science Journals Find New Life Online," New York Times (October 30, 1997):The CyberTimes Section.

6.  Anne B. Piternick, "Electronic Serials: Realistic or Unrealistic Solution to the Journal 'Crisis'?" The Serials Librarian 21, no. 2/3 (1991):15-31.

7.  Pieter A. Van Brakel, "Electronic Journals: Publishing via Internet's World Wide Web," The electronic Library 13, no. 4 (1995):389-95.

8.  Piternick, "Electronic Serials," 15-31.

9.  Paul Metz and Paul M. Gherman, "Serials Pricing and the Role of the Electronic Journal," College & Research Libraries 52 (July 1991):315-27.

10.  Hawkins, "Network Accessed Scholarly Serials," 19-31.

11.  Bailey, "Networked Based Electronic Serials," 29-35.

12.  Karen Hunter, et al, "TULIP Final Report", (1996). Available at: http://www.elsevier.nl/homepage/about/resproj/trmenu.htm.

13.  Gail McMillan, "Embracing the Electronic Journal: One Library's Plan," The Serials Librarian 21, no. 2/3 (1991):97-108.

14.  F.W. Lancaster, "Attitudes in Academia towards Feasibility and Desirability of Networked Scholarly Publishing," Library Trends 43, no. 4 (1995):741-52.

15.  Paul Metz, "The View from a University Library," Change (January/February 1995):29-33.

16.  Teresa M., Harrison and Timothy D. Stephen, "The Electronic Journal as the Heart of an Online Scholarly Community," Library Trends 43, no. 4 (1995):592-608.

17.  Ann Peterson Bishop, "Scholarly Journals on the Net: A Reader's Assessment," Library Trends 43, no. 4 (1995):544-70.

18.  Metz, "The View from a University Library," 29-33.

19.  Ellen Finnie Duranceau, Beyond Print: Revisioning Serials Acquisitions for the Digital Age," The Serials Librarian 33, no. 1/2 (1998):83-106.

20.  O. Gene Norman, "The Impact of Electronic Information Sources on Collection Development: A Survey of Current Practice," Library Hi Tech 15, no. 1-2 (1997):123-32.

21.  Elizabeth Parang and Laverna Saunders, comp., Electronic Journals in ARL Libraries: Policies and Procedures, SPEC Kit 201 (Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, 1994).

22.  Elizabeth Parang and Laverna Saunders, comp., Electronic Journals in ARL Libraries: Issues and Trends, SPEC Kit 202 (Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, 1994).

23.  Andrea Keyhani, "Creating an Electronic Archive: Who Should Do It and Why?" The Serials Librarian 33, no. 1/2 (1998):213-224.

24.  Bill Robnett, "Online Journal Pricing," The Serials Librarian 33, no. 1/2 (1999):55-69.

25.  Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovation, 3rd ed. (New York: Free Press, 1986).


Copyright © 1999 Heting Chu.
Submitted to CLIEJ on 15 July 1999.