You Get What You Pay for? Archival Access to Electronic Journals

An increasing number of libraries are canceling their print journal subscriptions and subscribing to journals in purely electronic format. With the print version of a journal, when the subscription is cancelled, the library retains all the earlier issues of the journal to which it subscribed. With the online version, this may not be the case. A library canceling an online subscription may lose all access to the journal, including issues for which access had previously been paid. The author describes the policies and practices of selected e-journal vendors and libraries in relation to archival access.