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Going E-only: All Icelandic Citizens Are Hooked
Interview by Ingrid van de Stadt, Customer Marketing Head, Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

What caused the Icelandic government and university and medical libraries to work together toward a national license?

In 1997, the government issued its policy that everyone in the country should have free access to scientific information. At the same time there was an initiative from university, research and medical librarians to share resources to make accessible larger numbers of e-journals and databases to their users. These two developments soon led to the formation of an electronic access committee investigating the idea of a national license. In 1999, the first national license in the world was signed between the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Icelandic government, followed soon by agreements with ProQuest and Elsevier in 2001. At that time the licenses covered print and electronic subscriptions, but the high computer literacy of the Icelandic population made the various stakeholders opt for an e-only arrangement when the agreements were renewed in 2003. In this new arrangement the libraries pay for the journal access fees (75% of all costs) whereas the government pays for the remaining 25% involved with libraries maintaining the infrastructure (homepage maintenance, etc.).

So when it comes to STM information, Iceland has gone e-only?
Overall, yes.

What type of information is covered in the national license?
Currently journals and databases are covered. We are looking into including backfile content and books in the future but more national funding would be needed for that. Elsevier just shared with us a study showing that backfiles are heavily used products in most European countries. It would be great to include this content in a national license.

Do you still have any printed journals in your library?
In addition to a handful of journals that are not available in electronic format, we still receive print copies of some 200 journals from publishers who don’t provide an e-only access model. So whether we like it or not, we have print and electronic access for these journals. Hopefully this will change in the future because we prefer e-only licenses for all of our journals.

How do you measure the success of your national license?
We are closely monitoring usage. The previously mentioned Elsevier study also shows that the usage per inhabitant in Iceland is two to four times higher than in any other European country. Whereas this doesn’t come as a surprise with a national license, it also means that the research funds provided by the government are being used to serve a greater number of citizens, which was exactly the goal of this license. Studies also show that, regarding our nationally available health subject collection, there seems to be a pattern of 50% of usage coming from within research institutions and 50% from outside. It is difficult to say whether the outside usage comes from researchers working at home or from other interested people not directly involved with research, such as patients.

Are you concerned about archiving issues in an e-only environment?
All of Elsevier’s electronic journals are safely stored in two places in the world [the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in the Netherlands and Portico in the USA], but an increasing number of institutions (including my own) are building their own e-repositories to ensure affordable access to their publications in the future. Articles in the repository of my university hospital all point to final versions of published articles at the publishers’ websites and, of course, because of our national license, everybody in Iceland can click through to the final versions of articles!

What do you consider to be the big challenge for e-only in the future?
With the limited funds we have available, it will be difficult for librarians to continue to provide access to all the important literature. Together with publishers we need to find ways to make nonsubscribed material easily accessible, without the administrative burden that is currently associated with Pay per View and ILL solutions.

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