Breaking inertia: increasing access to journals during a period of declining budgets: a case study.

Beginning in January 2012, a 1-year pilot pay-per-view (PPV) service was implemented. Twenty-four journal subscriptions were canceled to fund the service, and through the PPV service, the library was able to offer patrons access to over 700 previously unavailable biomedical journals. At the end of the pilot period, the total PPV cost for each journal accessed was compared to the subscription cost to determine if PPV was an effective use of library money. While remaining essentially budget neutral, the number of full-text articles accessed increased over 400%. PPV can be a cost-effective method for expanding access to journals.