The impact of consortia purchasing of periodical publications on the document supply service

Purpose This paper aims to show the impact of consortia purchased periodical publications on document supply services. These services have undergone considerable changes over the last five years, first decreasing but now recovering. Design/methodology/approach First, this paper reviews the most recent specialised literature, focusing mainly on the impact of electronic journals in libraries, their effects, and proposed actions. Second, as an example of this new behaviour, presents the document supply service data, as collected in one hospital's health‐science library in the last four years. Findings As evidenced by the literature, the users' acceptance of electronic journals has undoubtedly been excellent. Consortia purchasing projects have become a basic tool that expand collections, support cooperative technological development, and require negotiating skills from librarians. But these mass purchases do not seem to be the ideal solution for libraries, they entail losing freedom when choosing the collection and often make library collections homogeneous by publisher. Originality/value Reflects on what possible causes have led to the current situation and the current way to manage the collection.