Managing access to electronic subscriptions

The provision of information in electronic form and its network distribution simplifies the process of searching and retrieval while enabling remote access. The electronic material, though, is not provided for free. Electronic publishers organise and distribute their material to library subscribers according to contracts. Thus, management is not limited to storage, cataloguing and retrieval but it also encompasses security, access control management and copyright clearance. An architecture and the relevant procedures enabling library subscribers access to the electronic publishers' content are presented in this article.