e journals

Slide1: 

'One day we’ll look back on all this and laugh…' Massey University Library’s experiences with e-journals Tim Darlington, Electronic Services Librarian

Slide2: 

A (very) quick intro to e-journals at Massey E-journals page (http://library.massey.ac.nz/services/ejournals.htm) Publishers involved Local subject headings for browse feature Subject guides (http://library.massey.ac.nz/dbsubj.htm) Remote access Copyright warnings

Slide3: 

Outline Why go online? The problems we expected to solve The problems we expected to create The principles we developed... …and how we compromised them Some problems we didn’t solve Acquisitions and checkin headaches Putting agents out of business Falling usage of print journals Some problems that we did solve… kind of Remote access The disappearing journals syndrome

Slide4: 

Why go online Massey’s multi-site nature - 5 libraries in 4 cities, and the problems that created. Massey’s multi-modal teaching - extramural students spread all over the country, many of them with web access. Competitive advantage - funding depends on attracting students and researchers. Massey has to look cool to stay in business (term used deliberately!) Technology and licensing were starting to make it feasible - what publishers weren’t willing to countenance in 1998 are standard features of contracts in 2002.

Slide5: 

Solving these problems would involve replacing them with a different set of problems: 1. Most publishers didn’t like multiple sites. 2. Archival access - what happens if we cancel, or if the publisher goes bust, or has a fire in their server room? 3. Interloan - duty to the community. Need to remove holdings from Te Puna? 4. Study guides - duplicating articles often expressly forbidden. 5. No system then in place for providing remote access via IP-authentication. 6. Yet more 'change management' for the people currently working in checkin and acquisitions. 7. Complicated administration - how do you know if you haven’t received an online journal? Also, the need to deal with publishers directly.

Slide6: 

The principles we developed… Online-only a different beast to free-online-with-print. Concentrate time and effort where it’s needed - with the online-only subscriptions. We don’t pay extra for online access - BUT - e-journals aren’t cheaper than print! License must include some provision for archival access. Interlibrary loan must be permitted. Use of articles in study guides must be permitted. Authentication must be based on IP-address. The online content must be equivalent to the print content. Multi-site issues dealt with case-by-case.

Slide7: 

…and how we compromised them. The question is, are any of these deal-breakers? What if paying a bit extra brings additional titles into the license? We paid up. IEEE refused to commit to providing free archival access. We subscribed anyway. Science Direct. Interloan permitted, but only if you print the article and send that, and only if you write the interloans down and report them back to Elsevier annually. We subscribed anyway. What if users are badgering you for access to a title that doesn’t provide IP-authentication? We give them the user name and password.

Slide8: 

Some of the problems weren’t solved 1 - the checkin/acquisitions nightmare No knowledge of when titles aren’t being delivered No knowledge of when new titles are added as part of a package deal Every title being considered for online-only subscription needs its license inspected. Often multi-site institutions must ask for a quote and negotiate. Packages still the best option! Administration is still complicated and time-consuming.

Slide9: 

Some of the problems weren’t solved 2 - helping put your friendly neighbourhood subscription agent out of business Massey University Library removed approx US $500,000 of business from subscription agents in last 3 years. Still need the agents for our print subs, spread across hundreds of publishers, but we’re busy cutting off their main income stream - handling the remaining print titles is about to get much more expensive.

Slide10: 

Some of the problems weren’t solved 3 - falling print journal usage Simple concept - a journal article on your desktop is worth two in print over at the library. Critical mass achieved - students will now usually find something online, so printing out citations, writing call numbers on them, getting print journals off the shelves and photocopying them is an absolute last resort. Which means it’s vital to get journals online as fast as possible, to see that the most use is made of them. However, the majority of journals still only available in print, or online under conditions we won’t accept.

Slide11: 

Some of the problems were solved, at the expense of sleepless nights and new grey hairs 1 - the access nightmare Stage 1 - user names and passwords. Embarrassing! Stage 2 - the proxy server. The horror! The horror! Stage 3 - (angelic choir)EZproxy. Removes wrinkles!

Slide12: 

Some of the problems were solved, at the expense of sleepless nights and new grey hairs 2 - the 'disappearing journals' syndrome Put a journal online, and it becomes invisible to the people who wander among your shelves. Therefore, there has to be a browse feature, or your online journal collection is just a theoretical entity for your users. Easier said than done. State of the art in 1999 was listing the online journals on a web page - duplication of effort, and not scalable. Get around the duplication of effort by using the web OPAC for listing e-journals, but browse capabilities still not good. Hence the horrendous effort going into constructing web site solutions. Did I call this solved?

Slide13: 

Conclusions Licensing environment friendlier than 3 years ago, but still complicated and time-consuming in comparison to print journals. Technology and technical ability of publishers better than 3 years ago, but technical quality of online journals still varies widely. Policies will get compromised! Getting electronic journals in front of users still difficult and full of room for argument. Users voting with their computers - usage of print journals is falling Sub Agents will be forced to drastically increase the cost of handling print subscriptions.