Creating fee‐based online services: a new role for academic librarians

Although much has been written about the impact of the Internet and the Web on libraries and librarianship, relatively little attention has been devoted to the subject of librarians as creators and even marketers of new online services. The present article describes two fee‐based online services at the University of Illinois Library at Urbana‐Champaign: the online version of the American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies (ABSEES); and the IRIS suite of funding‐information services. The author discusses the pros and cons of in‐house content‐creation and concludes that academic libraries have the raw materials and the know‐how to create valuable new online services, especially reference services.