Friday, January 27, 2006

Wondering how to handle situation where WSJ article is only on its subscription WSJ.online

I was wondering if others have run into this situation: An accounting professor requested help locating an article that was published in 2002 only on the Wall Street Journal Online (wsj.com). It was written by a freelancer, which likely explains why it was not available on Factiva or any other online source that we have for the Wall Street Journal. (The article was referenced at the end of a WSJ article that was available full-text on Factiva as a WSJ Journal Link for readers to go to.) You can retrieve the freelancer's article for $2.95 online in the WSJ archive. There is no way to e-mail or save it. Reprints can be ordered. You can get a two week free trial to the WSJ.com online, which is how I located the article. The microfilm of the WSJ includes only the reference to see the WSJ Journal Link.

I imagine that this might be more of a concern in the future as more publications have either separate online editions or refer to stories exclusive in their online editions in their print editions.

1 comment:

Louise Klusek said...

Yes, this is true. There are articles that are exclusive to the WSJ.online and they are not available except to wsj.com subscribers. I'm not sure that the freelancer angle has anything to do with the availability, rather it is part of the marketing strategy that WSJ has used since they started promoting their online edition. Corporate libraries generally have a subscription to wsj.com as well as Factiva for just this type of situation.