Dear Mary
At the Australian National University we are addressing just this issue.
Most of the ANU Library subject areas have cancelled all print journals
that can be retrieved in full text. With the Schools of Art and Music, it
is a much more complex issue.
Visual Arts students here are adept with computers being required to take a
one semester course called Computer Studies with a hands-on tutorial
emphasis. Visual Arts academics have been less adept, however we are
running a current program for a 'travelling trainer' to provide a
one-to-one tutorial for staff in their office on their own computer. This
implies that their information and computer literacy skills are fairly high.
Both, however, still wish to look at print especially for the browsing
capabilities. Searching for material for essays is often best researched
using online resources with the huge range of interdisciplinary resources
available. (We subscribe to practically every online database and journal
available for art and music and have access to all of the university's
online resources.) On the other hand, searching for inspiration and ideas
to create art objects requires pictorial material and many in our academic
community would choose print over online both for the browsing capability
and for the quality. This may change if online journals more consistently
provide high quality images and if more contemporary art becomes more
readily available online. On the other hand, they prefer to take print
serials and monographs to their workshops while they are in the process of
creating a new artistic work. That is one of the reasons that we lend
serials to students while the ANU Library does not.
We are looking at cancellations for serials over the next few months so I
will be very interested in hearing any outcomes to the discussion.
Joye
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