Although the Internet has long been a medium for experimental electronic serials, mainstream publishers are now beginning to embrace the Internet, particularly WWW technology, as a way to offer their publications to the international community. Although there appears to be widespread use of standard web technology to offer electronic serial publications, there are many nebulous areas including clear and understandable pricing algorithms, electronic page layout, copyright issues, backfile availability, guaranteed accessibility, and mirroring of data. On-line, Academic Press and Elsevier Press. Another key issue facing publishers is security, i.e., how to offer full access to their electronic journals on the net and yet maintain proper security for authorized subscribers with the ability to lock others out. Many publishers allow any viewer to see certain elements of their ejournals such as a sample issue, sample articles or a table of contents.
Full access requires authentication.
The two most common validation methods are issuing a password to the subscriber or using domain limiting on the Internet. Both solutions have difficulties and benefits. Publishers will need to develop reasonable and flexible security methods to meet different needs. Corporate users and the media have been the primary users of timesharing services due to the financial considerations and the need for timely delivery of information. This option appeals more to libraries that want to acquire fixed-fee access to specific titles or databases.