The challenges and opportunities presented by fiscal constraint, new technologies and an information "explosion" require that universities and their libraries develop a system by which scholars and students can access information when it is needed. This discussion paper in English and French, is the first of a series of papers intended to raise awareness of important issues in academic libraries' support of scholarship in Canadian universities, to describe initiatives which address these issues, and to propose strategies for dealing with them. The ability of Canadian academic libraries to provide access to scholarly information is increasingly constrained by the worldwide proliferation and high cost of scholarly publications and the limitations of Canadian copyright legislation and copyright practices. This has a significant impact on the role of research within the academic community and on university promotion and tenure practices. Any new system that seeks to replace the current paper-based scholarly communication system will be expected to: restore scholar centricity; be network-based; be able to support all formats; protect the copyright interests of both scholars and institutions; be responsive to the values of peer review; base prices on actual costs; be timely; and provide the tools to create, convert, and organize the available information. A number of projects are underway among the academic community and by the federal government that address these needs. Appendices provide a list of task force representatives, descriptions of the roles of the National Library of Canada and the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information of the National Research Council of Canada, and a discussion of academic library studies in the United States and the United Kingdom. Suggested readings, Internet and UseNet newsgroups and a listserver are also provided. (AEF)