Can Document Delivery Compensate for Reduced Serials Holdings? A Life Sciences Library Perspective

Access versus ownership is the new dilemma facing most librarians in view of the rising costs of serials and not equally increasing budgets. But, is giving access to articles through document delivery really a viable alternative to journal ownership? The Life Sciences Library at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, decided to test the viability of using commercial document delivery as compensation for discontinued ownership, as a complement to ownership, and as a supplement to ownership by providing access to cancelled, owned-but-unavailable, or never-owned journals through a commercial document delivery service. This article documents the evolution of that procedure and the results of the project.