Subject: N-1-4-020.20.1 Gopher and Electronic Journals Billy Barron, UNT/CICNet The Internet Gopher and its cousin World Wide Web (WWW) are the first Internet systems that really allow the easy distribution of electronic journals to readers. A variety of sites ranging from UNT to NCSU to CICNet to MSEN have worked in this field already. The level of cooperation has been nothing less than amazing up to the present. However, in this article, I will focus on one project at CICNet. CICNet is the NSFNET regional provider for the Midwestern portion of the US and has agressively providing information resources to its members. CICNet and its members have seen that the archival and access of electronic journals is an important task. One of the beliefs of this project is that we are in the early stages of electronic journals. Many of the journals are experimental in nature, and these early efforts will provide early insights into the changing nature of communication. It is also felt that we should not depend on the journal producers to maintain historical archives anymore than we currently depend on publishers or authors to maintain archives. CICNet will be attempting to fill a part of this role. Electronic journals will be collected in two methods. The first is a member library will collect journals and ship volumes to CICNet for archival and general access by CICNet members. The second method is that CICNet will be directly collecting other journals via mostly automated procedures. The project is also considering access issues. Is gopher hierarchies based on a library classification scheme such as Library of Congress acceptable? Should MARC records be cut for these items? What other access methods, such as WAIS, are useful? If you would like to look at the project, it is available via Gopher at gopher.cic.net port 70 under the E-Serials item. Any specific questions or comments can be directed to me at my CICNet account (billy@cic.net).