E-Journals, Budgets, and Collection Policies: Managing the Serials Stranglehold in Libraries

Those who have spent all or part of the past decade working with e-journals, selecting them, paying for them, or managing them, will recognize a professional field that has changed dynamically and kaleidoscopically, and that is challenging library planning in fundamental ways. This chapter reviews some of the essential features of that challenge, particularly in the context of academic libraries in the United States, and in the areas of library budgeting and collection development.