Drexel University moves aggressively from print to electronic access for journals

摘要

In 1998, the W. W. Hagerty Library at Drexel University in Philadelphia made the strategic decision to migrate its journal collection from print to electronic as quickly as possible. In the three intervening years, the number of print periodicals has dwindled from 1,500 to just 300 in 2001. The only journals that remain in print are those that are not published electronically in what the library considers to be a suitable form, or those that are part of what is referred to as the library's "browsing collection," which includes periodicals such as Newsweek and Scientific American. At the same time, the number of unique periodical titles that the library offers its patrons has grown from 1,500 to about 6,300. About 50 percent of these titles are subscribed to via the publishers themselves, while the remaining titles come from aggregator collections, such as Pro-Quest and H.W. Wilson.