Magazine publishers weathered the difficult recession year of 2009 with admirable resilience. Although several magazines failed and many saw reductions in advertising revenue, a number of new publications have been launched as industry professionals continue to demonstrate their ability to adapt to new technologies and difficult business…

Over the next several decades, libraries will face the potential loss of all the e-journals, ebooks, electronic theses, local digital collections, and other "e-stuff" curated for the public good. A solution to this problem is LOCKSS ("Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe"), a free, open-source digital-preservation software from Stanford University that…

Electronic resources are more prominent than ever in library collections, yet they resist easy management. A range of tools and cooperative efforts are emerging to improve the management and evaluation of electronic resources. Initiatives are underway to standardize and automate the harvesting of usage statistics and e-journal title and holdings…

Without question, the ongoing transition from print to electronic periodicals has challenged librarians to rethink their strategies. While some effects of this change have been immediately apparent--greater breadth of material, easier access, exposure to new sources, publisher package deals, and open access--the broader outcomes on library…

This article discusses how Phil Davis, Life Sciences Bibliographer at Cornell University, found duplicate articles in Emerald/MCB University Press journals. According to Davis, he has found hundreds of examples of the same article published in more than one journal in at least 73 Emerald/MCB journals over 30 years. This article gives the details…

One critical role of the catalog is to help librarians manage and track their inventory, whether it's books, videos, journals, microfilm reels, laptops, or even access to study rooms. The phrase, "if you can't track it, you don't own it," is quite real for the library that is trying to monitor thousands or millions of items. In the last decade,…

In the last year the anger and frustration simmering in libraries for a decade or more over the growing dysfunction of the scholarly communications system found a voice, a cause, and a cadre of allies around the globe. This time, the voices that said, "No" to the Big Deals were those of faculty members and academic officers at some very…

The Carolina Consortium came into being for one purpose: to conclude deals that would allow the sharing of both the costs and the content of a large number of academic journals from three major publishers--Wiley, Springer, and Blackwell. In just a few months--and without any central authority, funding, or administrative overhead--librarians from…

This article, based on the Periodicals Prices Survey of 2006, evaluates the changing trends of electronic periodical marketplace in 2006 and indicates what to expect in 2007. The 2005-2006 academic year was one of competing realities: the buying and selling of electronic journals continued apace, while the posting and crawling of every kind of…

Discussion of the increasing price of journal subscriptions and the resulting impact on library budgets focuses on libraries in less developed countries. Describes international efforts between developed and developing nations to get scholarly research published, indexed and abstracted, converted to electronic form, and made accessible worldwide.…

Librarians must get the most for their money and look to technology for new solutions. Several respondents think poor budgets mean more reliance on online databases and electronic full texts with less purchase of print. Companies that produce both media are likely to continue as long as there is a market for both, but they are gearing up for the…

Open access publishing is a hot topic today. But open access publishing can have many different definitions, and pros and cons vary with the definitions. Open access publishing is especially attractive to companies and small colleges or universities that are likely to have many more readers than authors. A downside is that a membership fee sounds…

Considers the possibility of a bibliographic management tool that combines file storage with a Napster-like communications protocol, called docster. Explains Napster and discusses copyright issues, interlibrary loans, infrastructure, security concerns, the library's role, and online publishing. (LRW)

This academic library book buying survey examines full-text databases; electronic journals; top circulating subjects; price increases for serials and resulting subscription cuts; the influence of digital choices on purchasing decisions; circulation versus use statistics; and electronic books. (LRW)

As public and academic librarians rely more heavily on electronic resources to satisfy patrons' information needs, seamless searching across print and electronic holdings gets more and more essential. Enter the integrated library system (ILS)-independent electronic resource management system (ERMS), which promises to integrate, search, and expose…