*JoAnn Hounshell writes:

Electronic subscriptions are having a major impact on libraries' collection development practices and inevitably acquisitions librarians are faced with more questions than answers. In this issue of TSLL, I would like to focus on some very basic issues to consider in purchasing electronic subscriptions. I am defining an electronic subscription as any full text abstract or index published originally in or converted to an electronic format, including online databases, CD-ROMs and electronic journals. With such a broad definition I can consider access to Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals via Citadel, LegalTrac CD-Rom, and BNA's Daily Tax Reporter Highlights and Summary e-mail delivery as electronic subscriptions.

There are at least four very basic issues that an acquisitions librarian must consider when acquiring electronic publications. Do not misunderstand, I am not saying that there are only four issues; there are as many issues to consider as there are electronic subscriptions. I am limiting myself to addressing just four issues and hope that a discussion may develop concerning other aspects of electronic subscriptions.

ISSUE 1

Methods used in acquiring print subscriptions do not always work well in acquiring electronic subscriptions. Traditionally, acquisitions departments have consolidated most of their print subscriptions with one or two vendors, regardless of the subject matter. This practice has allowed acquisitions departments to streamline workflow and ensure that the best service and discounts were obtained. Although vendors such as Blackwell's, Ebsco, and OCLC (and others) provide access, reference, and control for electronic subscriptions, these services are not viable alternatives for law libraries since very few legal publishers work well with vendors (West Group is a good example). The majority of the time, the acquisitions librarian deals directly with the service provider. The good news is that there is no middle man. The bad news is that more responsibility falls on the library to provide uniform and consistent access to the patron.

The acquisitions librarian has to know what questions to ask relating to the specifics of the electronic subscription. For this reason, I have developed a checklist of questions for the service provider. The answers to these preliminary questions help the collection development librarians and the library administration in their decision making process:

» What is the price, and what is the price based on? This is always the first and the most important question. The answer will determine just how long the rest of the conversation will last. This question is always followed up with "What is the academic discount? " If you don't ask for the academic discount, the library may not receive the discount.

» How many simultaneous users are allowed under the their pricing structure? Pricing should be based on the size of the actual population which will use the electronic resource, or the actual recorded use. Before approaching the service provider, the library should have an idea about whether unlimited simultaneous use or transaction-based licensing is preferred for a particular electronic subscription.

» How is the price affected if the library acquires multiple formats, such as a looseleaf service available in print and electronically? Publishers may not agree, but libraries should not be required to maintain both the print and its electronic equivalent to receive a reasonable price. Many publishers offer their electronic subscriptions free as long as the library maintains the print subscription. This allows the publisher to have undue influence on the library's collection management practices.

» What are the system requirements for accessing the electronic subscriptions? The acquisitions librarian needs to be aware of the equipment currently available in the library and the law school community.

» Is IP access available for Internet-accessed subscriptions? It is much more cumbersome to have to deal with password restrictions.

» What type and how much technical support will the publisher provide? If onsite training is necessary, the user friendliness of the electronic service should be thoroughly investigated. Nevertheless, training material should accompany the subscription because no matter how user friendly the service, there is always a certain amount of patron education involved.

» Is a trial subscription available? followed quickly by Can I extend the length of the trial subscription? Electronic subscriptions are not inexpensive. More and more of a library's materials budget is consumed by non-print subscriptions. Therefore, the library and the library patron should be given a reasonable length of time to test an electronic subscription before a decision is made to purchase it.

ISSUE 2

There are ownership issues to be considered relating to electronic subscriptions. What will the library actually own? -- all of the data, any of the data, or only the compiled database? Unlike print subscriptions, once the electronic subscription ends, access to the database where the information is stored is unavailable to the library. Will the license agreement allow the institution to retain a right to archive the data? All aspects of the license agreement should be carefully reviewed to ensure that the library has the right to enhance or reformat data, as long as the integrity of the content is preserved, to make it more accessible to the library user. The convenience of providing links to other library holdings through the OPAC should not be blocked by the license agreement.

ISSUE 3

Who will have access to the electronic materials? Libraries and publishers naturally find themselves on opposite sides of this issue. Publishers need to have strict control over who may (and from what location) access their material in order to realize a profit. The library needs to consider the particular electronic resource and define the user community. Will access be defined by authorized user or by authorized machine?

The acquisitions librarian should negotiate the broadest range of access options. For academic law libraries, this may require a closer working relationship with the university's undergraduate library. Especially in the area of the social sciences, law libraries and undergraduate libraries are finding a lot of overlap in collection development. Forming an unofficial consortium to share the purchase cost and access to databases can prove to be very cost efficient.

ISSUE 4

In addition to the traditional collection development activities, the identification and acquisition of electronic resources in support of the institution's educational mission has become a major focus for many academic law libraries. Acquisitions departments must now address workflow issues that result from adding electronic resources to the collection. They are the same mundane issues that arise with print resources, maintaining order/pay/receipt records, cataloging and processing materials, and both print and electronic issues must be handled in the face of shrinking technical services resources.

For the library, the OPAC will continue to be the focus of bibliographic access for all types of materials. Representing electronic resources in the OPAC encourages their use and enables the patron to perform comprehensive searches for materials on any given topic. The library patron traditionally expects that the library's complete holdings will be available via the OPAC. For the acquisitions department this poses a problem of how to track the receipt of an electronic serial. A print or CD-ROM title can be checked in using the standard procedures, but what about a serial accessed through the Internet? Since I don't have an answer to this question, I would like to invite suggestions and further discussion.