The OCLC FirstSearch Electronic Collections Online service is now available to BCR member libraries. OCLC developed Electronic Collections Online to support libraries' efforts to acquire, circulate, manage and archive large collections of electronic journals on the World Wide Web. Libraries can subscribe to a large collection of academic journals from many publishers and disciplines and access them remotely through a single web interface that supports cross-journal searching and extensive browsing. Libraries choose the journals they want and subscribe to them through the publishers or participating subscription agents.

OCLC launched the service with 100 journals available and is adding more titles as they become available from the 16 participating publishers. Thirty-four are scheduled to be added in August. Approximately 500 titles are to be available by the end of 1997. A complete list of publishers and journals is available on the service's web site

To order this new OCLC service, first contact BCR's Jim Hensinger to set up an access account. Then order the journals you want through individual publishers or through any of the six participating subscription agents: Blackwell's, DA Information Services, EBSCO Information Services, the Faxon Company, HARRASSOWITZ and Swets & Zeitlinger. OCLC will add more subscription agents, publishers and journals in the coming months.