I am in my first term at the iSchool at Syracuse, so do forgive me if this question is naïve. I would like to know if it is possible to give unaffiliated users access to electronic serials at a very large academic library? 

I want to research the practicalities of implementing, for unaffiliated users such as visiting scholars, a system similar to the alumni library cards universities like Columbia and Yale have in place. I am an alumna of Barnard College, so I have friends with Columbia library cards, and I live in New Haven with friends who work at Yale Libraries, so I am also aware of Yale’s policies. Would it be possible to offer a paid library card system for unaffiliated users that would also offer access to electronic journals? Perhaps a limited number of these, to assure only a specific and measurable increase in users to subscription serials? I am thinking specifically of a university like Yale, where these cards and their users would constitute a very small number, compared to the total number of users. My professor fears that vendors would not consider this idea to be at all appealing, and would reject it out of hand. She suggested that I contact members of this list, as you are the experts!

Any ideas or suggestions would be incredibly helpful! I am at a stage in my research where I can be very flexible, so please send anything and everything my way.

Thanks in advance,

Anne-Marie

Library Science and Information Management

iSchool at Syracuse University