Background
Following lengthy and careful negotiations over many months, ANZCA Council has made the difficult decision to discontinue online access to the British Journal of Anaesthesia (BJA) from 1 January 2022 due to a significant and unsustainable price increase in our institutional subscription.
The cost to the college of continuing this subscription in 2022 would have increased by more than 1500 per cent, and would have used up more than 80 per cent of the ANZCA library’s entire annual budget. This increase and change to our subscription would seriously impact our ability to source, hold and maintain a diverse and comprehensive collection that meets the needs of all our members.
As one of the most popular publications available through the ANZCA Library, the decision by council to withdraw our subscription to the BJA was not taken lightly, and we have thoroughly investigated all options with the publisher, Elsevier, as well as the BJA.
How will the changes affect me?
The change to BJA access affects only current content up to 12 months. During this time the ANZCA library team can access BJA articles for fellows, trainees and SIMGs on request. You will continue to receive the following free online access to the BJA:
- Issues published pre-2022.
- Issues published from 2022 onward that are older than 12 months.
We have successfully secured continued access to the BJA for fellows, trainees and SIMGs through a number of other avenues, including:
- Heavily discounted personal subscriptions to ensure ongoing access to the most recent issues. More information on this rate is available here.
- Ongoing access to issues published pre-2022 and older than twelve months (predominant usage). This content may be accessed through the discovery service, journals list, apps and other linking tools and platforms.
- The continued ability to request any articles not available online through the library free-of-charge.
We will continue to provide free access to the popular associated journal, BJA Education via the ANZCA Library’s ClinicalKey subscription. And, as always, your annual ANZCA membership fees also give you free 24/7 access to more than 900 specialist medical journals, 120,000 online texbooks, a range of databases, and apps, and expert support services such as literature searching and keeping up to date.
The college will continue its positive relationship with the BJA through the collaborative BJA/ANZCA research grant, International Academy of Colleges of Anaesthesiology, and supporting the valued role of FANZCA members on the BJA Editorial Board.
Funds already budgeted for the BJA will be reallocated to other valued resources, in particular Covidence, and other tools to support the new Research Consultation Service.