Transition from Journals to E-Journals

Gwen Bird, SFU
Kevin Stranack, SFU

SFU’s migration to e-journals:
– 1999, 8k print titles
– 2005, 3k print, 10k e-journals
– Drexel in the US has gone all digital.
– Big license deals via consortia has made licensing e-journals much more cost effective.
– on a journal by journal basis, they cancel print and purchase the e-journal.
– Criteria for “migration” developed
– consulted with community.
– told everyone of the cancellations and if they wanted to keep the print, they would have to make a case to keep it.
– tracked on-line and print use stats. Dept’s more willing to ditch print after seeing the stats.
– Criteria: stability, archival rights,server reliability, image quality.
– Reaction: overall it has been a success. Usage stats bear this out. Usage stats increasing at 50 percent per year.
– changed ILL usage has decreased dramatically. Came from increased on-line content.
– preservation questions and long term access to journals.

– CUFTS: Serials Management
– on-line db of full text serials resources.
– developed at SFU for better full text link resolving.
– centrally maintained db.

Leave a Reply