Please obtain online access for clinical orthopaedics and related research prior to 2004. It is great that you have hard copies, but when doing research at home or looking up an article before an operating room case, online access is key. Thanks.
You and others have discovered that there is often little consistency in the range of dates for which we can offer online access to the complete holdings of a run of journals. Sometimes, with a database such as Project JStor, the entire run of a journal is available. That level of coverage is typically an exception. For most journals it can depend on what the publisher offers or what we can reasonably afford to acquire.
The journal that you are interested in, Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, is available prior to 2004 through the OVID system. Through Ovid we have back to 2001. However, for the period from January 1, 2008 it is available from Springer Online Journals. Whenever checking for our availability of online journal content check our Journal Finder – on the home page of the Temple Libraries.
If you believe that the older holdings of this title warrant the library purchasing online back files, please send us a recommendation through our online Purchase Recommendation Form .
When the Library subscribes to an electronic title, a decision needs to be made regarding how far back to purchase the older issues. In some cases, the publisher makes available back to a certain date (say 2001) and prior to that date the library must pay an additional fee for the older content (the archives). The Library needs to balance the need for online access to the current materials, which in the health sciences disciplines are often considered the most valuable for patient care and research, with the need to provide convenient access to older issues. If the library already holds the print title (say back to the early 1960s), the library has to decide whether or not to purchase essentially duplicate issues online. In some cases, the need for full runs of titles is significant, and certainly the library purchases those backfiles.
[This response was authored by Barbara Kuchan, Interim Director of the Health Sciences Library]