Editorial

I would like to comment on changes we have just introduced in the way that professional group subscribers to the International Journal can gain access to issues and articles.

The traditional method of reading the print copy of the Journal naturally remains. However, we know that a growing number of subscribers are comfortable accessing the Journal digitally via the web, and also that there are growing concerns about the environmental costs of printing and shipping. Additionally, during the pandemic there were severe disruptions to postal services, so even if subscribers want printed copies, it can also be useful to be able to access the Journal digitally (and also to search it and find content). Because the digital version has become so important (in 2022 60% of our subscribers have already chosen a digital-only subscription), we have taken steps to make it much more accessible.

Subscribers in universities and public institutions will continue to access the Journal via T&F online - the digital platform of our publisher, Taylor & Francis, with which they are familiar. For them there is no change. However, we know that the great majority of psychoanalysts and other professionals interested in psychoanalysis, worldwide, have not been using their digital subscription at T&F online, perhaps because they do not use publisher websites ordinarily, and also because it requires them to register and remember specialist access codes and web addresses. What this group ordinarily access for psychoanalytic material is PEP-Web - the Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing archive of over 70 journals, as well as books and videos, to which over 22,000 professionals worldwide subscribe.

Until now, PEP has been including the full texts of papers from all the leading journals as they are published, but contracts between PEP and publishers forbade full-text access for PEP archive subscribers for three years or a bit more. Because we knew that very few people actually took the trouble to read t