Fee or free?

It will be no surprise to ILL librarians that high quality published material still costs money – and a lot of it (although see the round-up of material on OAI in the Literature review). However, "In the UK, the Periodicals Publishers Association Interactive reported in March that two thirds of interactive publishers would start charging this year (Information World Review, June 2002); and Jack Schofield in The Guardian (4 July 2002)observes – "With the drying up of funds from investors and a slump in the online advertising market, thousands of Web sites are either closing down or trying to find new sources of income. Someone has to pay, so every week, more sites change from free to fee."