I recently placed a subscription for Psycoloquy on behalf of the OSU
Libraries and received a message back from one of the editors suggesting that
we make the journal available to our users electronically rather than in paper
form.  I have since informed him that we _are_ making electronic journals and
newsletters available to our users in electronic form and described the
methods that we are using.  I thought that the subscribers to this list might
find the information of interest as well.

At OSU we are making electronic journals and newsletters available
electronically over OSU's campus-wide information service as a joint effort of
University Libraries and Academic Computing Services.  Those titles that we
categorize as "journals" contain substantive articles or works of fiction that
are refereed.  For these titles, all current and back issues will be
accessible online.  Those categorized as "newsletters" generally contain news
of topical interest to an audience in a particular subject area; only the most
current issues of these titles will be available online.

All electronic journals and newsletters will have entries in the Libraries'
online catalog, indicating that they are considered a part of the Libraries'
collections, but they will be accessed through the campus-wide information
network operated by Academic Computing Services.  Thus, the location shown for
a psychology journal published in print form will be the Education/Psychology
Library (EDU), and the location shown for Psycoloquy will be the campus-wide
information service (CWS).

We presently have the current issues of five journals and five newsletters
available for the campus community to access.  By the end of next week we plan
to add more titles (including Psycoloquy) and make all available back issues
of the journals available.  The menu for journals now shows the title and issue
identification of one issue each of five titles.  In the format to which we'll
be moving next week, the user will be first presented with a menu of titles
through which s/he can page forward and backward.  When a title is selected, a
listing of all available issues in inverse chronological order (i.e., most
recent issue first) will be displayed; again it will be possible to page
forward and backward through the list.

Once an issue has been selected, it can be viewed using software that will
allow paging forward and backward, as well as searching for particular
character strings.  Thus if a table of contents is included in a journal, the
reader can search for a character string from the title or an author's name
and proceed directly to that article without having to page through the issue
to reach it.

Our intent is to handle these titles exactly as we would titles in the more
traditional print format in all areas except method of access.  Here we will
take advantage of their unique technological characteristics by providing
electronic access rather than converting them to print form.  In all other
respects they will follow the same procedures and be recorded in files and
catalogs just as are titles received in print form.