Abstract
ABSTRACT Academic communication and discourse requires access to scientific journals and documents. This study examines the delivery time, costs, and quality of five commercial suppliers of scientific documents. Fifty-three agricultural article requests were ordered simultaneously from The British Library Document Supply Centre (BLDSC), The Canadian Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI), Information Express (IE), Infotrieve (INFO), UnCover (UNCOVER). Data were gathered on each supplier's performance in filling the requests, the delivery time, the costs, and the quality of the articles supplied. The results of this study showed comparative strengths and limitations. BLDSC, CISTI, and IE were all similar, consistently delivering high quality documents. INFO alone was able to deliver all 53 requested articles. UNCOVER showed two strengths, delivering the requested documents quickly and replying back if the article order was cancelled.
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