Embargoed and Rolling Back Issues of Electronic Journals.

The Library's collection of electronic resources continues to grow. At present there are nearly 1400 full-text journals accessible directly from Innopaclink removed (the library catalog). Online content to periodical literature is acquired in many different ways:

  • Provided by the publishers with the print subscription
  • Purchased directly from the publishers through subscription and license agreements
  • Purchased in packages from publishers' own proprietary systems (e.g. Elsevier's Science Direct, Blackwell's Synergy)
  • Purchased from aggregators (e.g. Gale Group, ProQuest) - which distribute packages of full-text electronic articles published by different publishers
  • Provided by publishers free to everyone without subscription all the time or after an embargo period (e.g. some journals viewable free at the PubMed Central site; some Societies' journals from HighWire Press)

    • Every effort is being made to provide all electronic content as soon as it is published, but this is not always possible. Publishers, aware of the increased use of electronic versions of journals, try to prevent a loss of revenue by using an embargo system and restrictive linking. Embargo is the "period during which the articles published in a periodical are not available in online full-text from a journal aggregator, usually the most recent 1-3 years. Journal publishers have established such periods to prevent libraries from canceling print subscriptions." * As a consequence of some publishers' trade practices a small fraction of journals in our library has this delayed availability or embargo (e.g. Journal of Virology has a 6-month embargo period; Journal of Infectious Diseases has a 2-year embargo period).

    Another way the publishers limit access to electronic journals is by providing rolling back files, also called the moving wall. This practice provides access to the specified recent period. The new content is added while the older content is removed.

    * Reitz, Joan M. (2002). ODLIS: Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science. Available at: http://vax.wcsu.edu/library/odlis.htmllink removed. Accessed November 11, 2002.

    -- Hanna Kwasik
    hkwasi@lsuhsc.edulink removed