The rising cost of serials occupies much discussion bandwidth. However, the cost of managing serials, including the A&I discovery apparatus, is also considerable. A growing number of libraries are investing in some or all of the metasearch/resolver/electronic resource management/knowledge-base suite of tools and associated data management services. They continue to invest significantly in A&I databases. This all consumes considerable financial and technical resource, as well as much human attention. We should remember that not only are journals rising in price, but that the fragmentation of the serials base and ways in which we currently manage it impose a considerable burden on libraries.
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