Few recent developments have had a more dramatic effect on scholarly communication than the proliferation of electronic journals. The migration of information from print to electronic formats has enabled scholars to access the best research in their fields without leaving their offices. In addition, it has eased the burden on libraries whose storage space is limited, and has allowed librarians to concentrate more on providing access and less on physical processing.
However, all of the positive aspects of electronic journals do not diminish the fact that with this improved access comes a whole new set of challenges for libraries, because e-journals come in many different packages. They may come individually, or as part of a large full text database, and the same e-journal may come from several different vendors, each featuring a drastically different interface. Further, URLs may change, often without notice, and coverage may differ from vendor to vendor, with some offering a wider range of back issues, while others might offer more comprehensive "cover to cover" indexing of their collection.
When Rensselaer's Libraries' collection of e-journals consisted of a small number of titles, it was possible to maintain a hand-coded on-line list as part of RensSearch. However, as our collection grew, this list became more and more unwieldly and inaccurate. Simultaneously, we were entering e-journals into our on-line catalog to allow them to be retrieved by searches, and our maintaining the same items in two separate areas led to discrepancies and problems with reliability. When RensSearch was revised over the summer, the outdated and unreliable e-journal list was dropped, while thorough instructions for finding e-journals in the catalog were added.
Phase two of our improved e-journal access will come over the winter break, when we will reintroduce an alphabetical list of e-journals into RensSearch. This list will be generated from the records in our catalog, allowing us to maintain both the list and the searchable catalog record from the same place. As a result, library patrons will have two reliable methods of e-journal access, and library staff will be able to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of the information being provided. This list will be rudimentary at first, and may not contain all of the journals listed on the old e-journals page, but it will grow and change along with our on-line collections.
This is an exciting time for librarians and for scholars. We hope that our new listing of electronic journals will help to make RensSearch an even more integral part of research here at Rensselaer.
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