Elektroniska tidskrifter - var, när, hur och i så fall varför?

Sammanfattning: An increasing number of scholarly publishers are beginning to make their journals available electronically. At the same time there is a growing amount of exclusively electronic journals freely accessible on the Internet. These are facts that librarians have to take into consideration. This master's thesis aims to describe the electronic journal and its role in Swedish academic libraries. In a review of current literature about electronic journals, the authors discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and their impact on scholars, publishers and libraries. To investigate the situation in Sweden, a questionnaire was sent out to 43 academic libraries. Questions were raised about the selection and acquisition of electronic journals, access, technology and economy. The results show that almost half of the 35 responding libraries offer electronic journals to their users. The amount varies from a few journals to a couple of hundred. Most of them are electronic versions of print journals in the fields of science, technology and medicine. The electronic journals are mainly seen as a complement to the printed collection, but several of the libraries believe that a transition from print to electronic journals may occurr. Moreover, the vast majority of those libraries participating in the study that do not offer electronic journals at present, are planning to implement them in the near future. This indicates a growing importance of electronic journals in Swedish academic libraries.