ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a new perspective that will play a role in advancing the library community’s discussion related to the access and ownership of journals. The Journal Accessibility Factor would approach the question of worth by beginning with the premise that serials information is valuable only to the extent to which it is made available to the public at large (or the population to whom it is targeted) through current, prevalent retrieval avenues. Services may provide substantive abstracts which generally average over 200 words or author-supplied abstracts which vary in length. Full text services are designed for both access and retrieval. EBSCO responded by extending its serials realm in the early eighties to include a publisher of abstract and index services and in the nineties to include a document delivery provider in addition to its subscription agency. EBSCO has historically revolved its products and services around the evolving technology issues in serials management.
