An experimental study of the feasibility of substituting Chemical Abstracts on-line for the printed copy in a medium-sized medical library.

The reference staff of the Washington University School of Medicine Library, in an attempt to consider an alternative way of providing the information contained in the printed Chemical Abstracts, designed a study to examine whether the on-line version of Chemical Abstracts could be substituted for the hard copy. For a thirteen-week period, all patrons using the printed index were offered a free computer search of Chemical Abstracts in exchange for evaluating the searches. Only 39.6% of those offered a free search chose to do so. Of these patrons, 62% still planned to refer to the abstracts later, which are only available in the printed index. The hypothesis that the on-line version could be substituted for the printed index was not confirmed.