What may seem like a reasonable price and agreement this year could change drastically by next year. Publishers are proceeding very carefully with the online business, not wanting to lose any of their profit margin. It is important for libraries, however, not to get taken for a ride. There are several steps IEEE could take to improve the value of IEL Online. There are currently no such projects in the works.
Interlibrary loan is vital to research and library budgets.
IEEE should be an industry leader and allow institutions to share documents from IEL Online as it does with its print publications. In addition, there are many search and save features missing from IEL Online that are standard in most other article databases. Adding marking, search history saving, and marked lists e-mailing features would enhance the functionality of IEL Online. We welcome your comments about this article. Please fill out this form for possible inclusion in a future issue.