Digitising high-demand materials in order to increase their access to students is currently very much a library-initiated activity, and one which needs careful presentation and explanation to publishers. There are a number of Electronic Libraries (eLib) projects working in this area, and some university libraries have independently undertaken to develop electronic collections, for example the universities of Leeds, Derby,Wolverhampton and York. To ensure access to large numbers of students, librarians normally place a photocopy of high-demand articles in their short loan collections. If the article is in a journal held by the library, this is very straightforward. If the library does not subscribe to the journal, then a cleared copy can be obtained from the British Library. This service now charges the cost of the inter-library loan (about £5.00) together with a fee to be paid to the publisher. These fees currently range from £4.20 for pre 1990 material and up to £10.00 for most other articles. There are about 600 journal titles for which publishers have asked for a fee in excess of £10.00. It must be noted that, apart from the cleared copy fee paid tothe British Library, short loan services currently generate no income for publishers.