That there should be a reasonable cost for single articles, that access by libraries on behalf of citizens under fair use is allowed and that the library is able to purchase a hard copy version of each article. The question of long-term preservation of these journals has not yet been solved. Both the hardware and software for electronic journals will become obsolete within a few years. This is an area that the library community will have to deal with. NLM hopes that in the future indexing will become increasingly automated as this would reduce costs.
Human indexing is expensive and labor intensive.
The goal is to assure the same quality of retrieval that the current system provides. As previously mentioned, Internet is seen as very important in the future of providing medical information to the medical community. NLM, however, will concentrate on applications and not hardware or software development. This wonderful device, a revolutionary breakthrough, needs no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries. It is so simple to use that even a child can operate, it is compact, portable and can be used anywhere.