Once a requested electronic publication has been located, accessing and using it can be cumbersome. Electronic publications require that certain hardware and software be available at the user's site. At present, a large variety of physical storage media for electronic publications (CD-ROM, diskette, tape etc.) exist and will continue to exist, since newly evolved technologies do not always replace previous ones, but co-exist with them. A library that owns or leases electronic publications therefore will have to provide the necessary reading devices for each storage medium to be used. Electronic publications in HTML format on the World Wide Web not only require networked terminals at the user's site, but also often make it necessary that a particular version of the browser and other software be installed. Networked documents depend on a stable and reliable infrastructure. At present, bandwidth does not keep up with demand. Even in technologically developed countries, accessing networked documents can be painfully slow, and the situation is even worse in countries with less stable infrastructure. It is not yet clear who will be able to pay for new versions of software and hardware that are necessary at ever shorter intervals, and who will ensure reading devices for offline electronic publications are available in our libraries many years from now.
Further important changes in the electronic environment refer to copyright law and interlibrary loan. Copyright law is meant to grant the owners of creative and scientific works specific rights. For instance, those who want to use copies of a work must have the copyright holder's permission and usually have to pay a certain amount to the owner. In order to balance the rights of copyright-holders and those who want to use the information, there are some exceptions to this rule. Interlibrary loan (ILL) is one such exception. With regard to journal articles, this name is somewhat confusing, because libraries today do not usually lend bound volumes of journals, but rather send photocopies of individual articles. However, the concept of interlibrary loan has remained the same up to now - a library that needs a publication owned by another library may ask for a photocopy, provided the principle of fair use (or fair dealing) is adhered to, i.e., the copy is meant for personal, scientific or educational, but not commercial, use. Misuse of intellectual property seems to be all too easy in the electronic environment; therefore many publishers currently are trying to diminish some of the rights users had with print publications, in particular the right of interlibrary loan. But ``there is a misconception that fair dealing does not apply to electronic databases. Fair dealing takes no regard of the medium'' (Oppenheim, 1997). In the interest of the scientific and general public, interlibrary loan and the fair use concept must be maintained with regard to electronic publications.
Following a phase of free access for test purposes, we now witness a commercialization of electronic information resources on the Internet. Publishers are concerned about their earnings if they are not able to trace who has accessed, printed, or otherwise used the publications they market. Most probably, their concerns will vanish soon once reliable Electronic Copyright Management Systems (ECMS) become available that will be able to automatically tag copyrighted works and monitor their use (Oppenheim, 1997). There is another reason for publishers not to worry. Those libraries that can afford it will continue to order needed publications from commercial document delivery services (from where publishers can be sure to receive royalty revenues), as in many countries commercial services are quicker than interlibrary loan due to work overload at the lending library. However, those libraries whose budgets are too limited for purchasing articles from commercial services must be able to rely on ILL, or their users will be entirely excluded from access to electronic information resources.