Library and Information Science

The purpose of this study is to identify trends in electronic journals from the late 1990s and early 2000s. Although the term “electronic journal” has various definitions, the main form used today refers to the electronic version of a print journal. This form has spread rapidly since the late 1990s, through the development of the Internet and the Web, and through special packages offered by commercial publishers.

In order to ascertain the changes that occurred during this time, the author investigated how the contents of existing print journals were represented on the Internet. Journals in physics (58), psychology (89), and a sampling of fields (69) were examined in 1998, 1999 and 2002, by using a search engine to locate the web pages containing these journals.

It was found that the number of journals that offered electronic versions of their print journals increased rapidly, although there were differences according to discipline, language and publisher. The subscription rates for electronic journals also underwent changes. In conclusion, while electronic journals started out as an “extra” feature available to subscribers of print journals, by 2002 the electronic version of many journals had achieved the same status as the print version.