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Over the past several years the price of science, technical and medicine (STM) materials has been increasing steadily at a rate unimaginable and unexplainable in economical terms. Over the same period of time, there has been a technological revolution that would change the way libraries deliver their services forever. The Internet and, subsequently, the Web have become the greatest delivery options available to publishing. Hence, one of the suggested solutions to the serials crisis was to eliminate the typesetting, printing and distribution costs of journals with the hope that that would make them cheaper, speed up the distribution process and give end‐users more control. This paper focuses on whether the Internet has made STM resources cheaper or better. In order to gather information, a survey and interviews of science librarians in academic institutions and STM publishers and vendors were conducted.

To provide an overview of the growing international movement of librarians, faculty members, and researchers who are working together to develop new methods of scholarly communication, including Open Access (OA) journals, digital e‐print archives, and institutional repositories, and to press for public access to federally funded research.

Key elements which have created pressures for change in the scholarly communication system are reviewed: the development and expansion of the Internet and networked technologies, and rapidly increasing journal costs due to consolidation, pricing structures and title aggregating in the commercial journal publishing industry. Effects of these pressures on libraries, citing Bowdoin College as an illustrative case, and examples of OA and affordably priced journal publishing models and OA principles and infrastructure are presented.

The OA movement has gained momentum and appears to be meeting with some success, with worldwide efforts to make federally funded research available to taxpayers and the largest science, technology and medicine journal publishers revisiting pricing structures. It is predicted that commercial journals, OA journals and digital repositories will continue to co‐exist as information resources for the scholarly community for the foreseeable future.

This is not an exhaustive history, but rather a review of movement highlights, written by a steering committee member of SPARC, a major scholarly communication movement stakeholder.

A useful overview for librarians and researchers unfamiliar with the movement who wish to educate local faculty members about the implications for their publishing and professional activities, as well as for commercial publishers and scholarly presses interested in learning more about the movement.

The future possible roles of the publisher in industry markets are considered, especially for firms close to high technology. It is forecast that the Internet will become the dominant business space for firms. Even in physical manufacturing the advances of the Internet are becoming important with changes in supply and distribution patterns. In order to meet the new era of opportunity three scenarios are presented. Firstly, continuation of the current one with the publisher as information provider. Secondly, the publisher may become an orchestrator of interactivity. Hence they can be the hub of a new intelligence facility for firms to know their external environment better. This also would be an appropriate response to the expected steep increase in requests for more customised sources of information. Lastly, the publisher can go a stage further and become a consultant or facilitator of the agile enterprise based on the Internet. This would enable the client company to become a more adaptive and proactive entity afterwards. Recommendations are made for assisting the shift for these further scenarios to become possible.

Describes the change in the perception of the ADONIS project 14 years after its introduction. Outlines the original mission – to use new technology to provide copies of copyright articles more efficiently, and to take net efficiency gain as a usage or copyright fee. Details the present ADONIS service – its mission is the same although the manner of achieving it has changed – providing a history of the last ten years; lists recent developments, planned developments and highlights the main problem of ADONIS to be pricing.

The overall goal of science is to build a valid and reliable body of knowledge about the functioning of the world and how applying that knowledge can change it. As personnel and human resources management researchers, we aim to contribute to the respective bodies of knowledge to provide both employers and employees with a workable foundation to help with those problems they are confronted with. However, what research on research has consistently demonstrated is that the scientific endeavor possesses existential issues including a substantial lack of (a) solid theory, (b) replicability, (c) reproducibility, (d) proper and generalizable samples, (e) sufficient quality control (i.e., peer review), (f) robust and trustworthy statistical results, (g) availability of research, and (h) sufficient practical implications. In this chapter, we first sing a song of sorrow regarding the current state of the social sciences in general and personnel and human resources management specifically. Then, we investigate potential grievances that might have led to it (i.e., questionable research practices, misplaced incentives), only to end with a verse of hope by outlining an avenue for betterment (i.e., open science and policy changes at multiple levels).

The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Electronic Library Project is a corporate research and development initiative by the Institute for Scientific Information. It offers users access to the information contained in the Current Contents/ Life Sciences database, as well as the full images of those journals to which publishers have given permission and to which the site subscribes. The project has confirmed many basic concepts. However, since the project was launched in 1993, technology has greatly altered the needs and expectations of STM researchers and librarians. Examines the impact of those changes on the project, and the resulting course of developments at ISI.

Intermediaries of various sorts have been key players in helping libraries in access to, and the acquisition of, serials. Subscription agents have been prominent, with a strong tradition in the print environment. They have developed additional services for libraries that focus on using automation to meet this objective, starting with serials management software and links to their databases in the 1980s, through to electronic journal services today. Intermediaries have a wider role in providing services in the area of electronic journals, to publishers as well as libraries. Current trends in scholarly publishing include the growth of alternative publishing initiatives. A key development at present is the growth of linking, including reference linking between publishers and the linking activities of intermediaries. The recent growth of library consortia in various countries has had an impact on library purchasing methods, and hence on the role and services of subscription agents. In this respect Swets Blackwell has been active as the managing agent in the UK NESLI Project.

The article aims to provide an update on the situation of document supply and interlibrary loan in France in the first months of 2005. The main topic is open access to scientific information.

Describes open access, consortial purchasing, national archives, portals, electronic delivery and legal issues. Some evidence is given on the impact of electronic journals on document supply.

In the France of 2005, the legal environment and the (science, technical and medical) STM lobby continue to strengthen the position of rights‐holders (publishers) and to increase restrictions and prices of access to scientific information, fixing unrealistic copyright fees around a US$30 level.

Provides international interlending and document supply (ILDS) practitioners with intelligence on the current developments in interlending and document supply in France.