I am in the middle of finalizing my journal renewals for 2006. Previously my library had no real online initiative. Before I started this year, we had no electronic catalog (just a card catalog), 2 electronic journals, and a teeny tiny presence on the hospital's Intranet page.

In my first 8 months I have gotten a new online catalog, expanded our Intranet presence, activated 40 online journals, and added access points to the collection of online books in MDConsult and StatRef. My little library has come a long way, but it still has a very long way to go.

In my quest to provide the best electronic and traditional access I can afford I have been looking at the online journals provided by Ovid. Currently my library pays for a one concurrent user license to NEJM and JAMA. Out of curiosity I checked out the online access prices at both publisher's sites. It turns out that online access to JAMA from the AMA is only $250 more expensive than Ovid. NEJM is approximately $100 more.

This discovery makes me wonder about online journals through Ovid. Is Ovid's ejournal model outdated? Ovid likes to point out that we will always access to what we bought, that we will retain the archival rights to the journals. However, is this a concern for libraries? Would you rather have unlimited user access, PDFs (as is the case with NEJM in Ovid) and access to the most recent articles, or would you rather your library have one person access and "permanent" archival access? I would think it depends upon your library.

However, I have got to think that Ovid's concurrent user license for electronic journals is quickly becoming or is already outdated. After all, unless it is an LWW title, I don't understand why libraries would pay for online access to a journal unless the cost for one user access is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than the publisher's online access price.

You also have to think of your users. Do your users even like using Ovid to access journal articles? I am not talking about using Ovid's databases and getting an article through a full text link. I am talking about going directly to a journal because they want to retrieve an article from that just came out. From my unofficial observations, my users will try every method and link possibly before clicking on the Ovid full text journal link. They absolutely hate the whole set up. My users want something simple and direct like Highwire journals. Has Highwire found a design "standard" for online journals? It seems to be that way. If your users would rather click on everything but Ovid to get the full text of a journal, then why are you getting and paying for it when they don't want to use it and the costs may not be justifiable?

Just a few things to think about when you are renewing your databases and journals. It is so easy to sign the form to renew and only look to acquire the "new" things. You have to remember to figure out if you are getting the most bang for the buck on your "old" things. Who knows you might save a little bit of cash and be able to afford something new.