Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to send a follow-up to Anne's email about the Blackwell/Wiley Interscience access issues. There are two problems that have occurred as a result of the transfer. The first one if missing content, titles affected by this are listed on the Wiley spreadsheet that Anne referred to. In addition to this we are also experiencing problems in accessing our subscribed content. When you try to access something within the date ranges listed in Find It you will get asked to log in. I just did a spot check of 64 titles for which we should have access from 1997/1998 (if available) to the present and we only access in four titles.
Anne and I are continuing to work on resolving this as soon as possible. In the mean time if you run into problems with Blackwell titles let us know so we can keep track of what the problem is and make sure that it is resolved.
Thanks.
-Nicole
On Monday June 30th 2008, all Blackwell journal content will move to Wiley InterScience. The weekend of
June 28th and 29th, both Blackwell and Wiley will be unavailable during the data transition.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Email notice from Wiley:
As of Monday, June 30th 2008, all Blackwell journal content—including all full-text HTML and PDF versions of articles from current issues, backfiles, and issues published online before print—will be incorporated into *Wiley InterScience*.
We plan to close Blackwell Synergy at the end of business (Pacific Standard Time) on Friday June 27th and we anticipate that the migration will be completed by Monday June 30th. Over the weekend of June 28th and 29th, there will be a period when both Blackwell Synergy and Wiley InterScience will be unavailable while we transition and re-index data.
Wiley InterScience
Blackwell Synergy
As of *June 30, 2008*, all journal content on Blackwell Synergy will be merged into Wiley InterScience.
*After June 30th, Blackwell Synergy will no longer be available.*
*Please forward this message to any library colleagues who need this information.*
Details about the actual downtime period will be posted on each site prior to June 27th, and you can find other essential information and FAQs about the change in service here:
* *interscience.wiley.com/transition*
- for Librarians and Institutional Customers
* *interscience.wiley.com/transition-users*
- for Individual End Users
* *interscience.wiley.com/support*
- Customer Support contact information
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some important things to remember:
* No new Wiley-Blackwell content will be published online from June
21st until July 7th. After July 7th, publication schedules will
resume as usual.
* Links to journals on Blackwell Synergy will automatically redirect
to Wiley InterScience. There is no need for you to change your links.
* Subscriptions for Blackwell journals on Synergy will migrate to
Wiley InterScience, with the terms of all existing licenses honored
* If you have activated TPS access for your institution, see
*interscience.wiley.com/transition*
for details on updating your TPS script.
* These access options *will continue* to function seamlessly:
• IP authentication
• Athens authentication
• Username and password access
* For the Library/Customer Administration area, we have matched
Synergy and Wiley InterScience accounts so you will be able to
manage all your Wiley and Blackwell journals using your existing
Wiley InterScience Administrator login. If you do not already have
a Wiley InterScience administrator ID, you will receive further
instructions after the transition.
* From September 2008 onwards, usage data for Blackwell journals
will be available on Wiley InterScience, presented in a separate
report but in the same format as that offered for Wiley journals.
Usage data for Blackwell journals for the period prior to December
2005 will not be transferred to Wiley InterScience and will no
longer be available.
* We are running several free Webex training sessions about Wiley
InterScience, including how to use the library administration
area. For more information about joining these webinars, visit:
interscience.wiley.com/training
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amy Claussen
akla0002@umn.edu
Hello-
I just wanted to elaborate on Amy's earlier blog post about Frontiers in Bioscience. As many of you know, Frontiers in Bioscience has always been one of the more complicated ejournals to access because it has a particularly complicated method of authentication, with a unique password for each year. As of 2008, it has gotten even more complicated. For 2008 issues only, there is not only a separate password but also a separate username. Also, 2008 articles are available ONLY in the filetype PDF Type II (previous volumes are still available only in PDF Type I). Also, once you are on the publisher's page for Frontiers in Bioscience and you finally get to the correct page to enter the aforementioned username and password, make sure you scroll down to the second set of fields for entering a username and password under where it says Access by Subscription (not Purchase the selected article).
I hope that this information is helpful.
Cheers,
Martha
The 2008 username and password are now available. Please note 2008 articles are only available in PDF Type II format and now require both a username and password.
This has been updated on the Find it link.
We have not yet received the 2008 password for Frontiers in Bioscience. We will let you know as soon as it is available. Thank you.
Amy
Hi all,
SFX has been recently upgraded to include a new Category tab. This tab has selected e-journals by category and subcategory. Liaisons and selectors worked throughout the summer to create these lists. It is still a work in progress and additional lists should come online as they are completed.
Here are some instructions on how to create a "deep" URL to one of these subject lists. This URL should remain stable to the external user.
How to Create Deep URLs of E-Journals via the Category Listing:
1. Go to the E-Journals page and select the Category tab.
2. Highlight the Health Sciences category and then appropriate Subcategory. Click Go.
3. Copy the long URL that results. You will have to scroll through the URL to copy all of the data.
Example: Long URL for Dentistry & Dental Hygiene e-j list:
http://tc.liblink.umn.edu/sfx_local/a-z/default?param_current_view_value=table&¶m_sid_
save=877befcbab64d8c0e355eaa6a460a389¶m_category_search_type_save=
browseSubCategory¶m_letter_group_save=¶m_perform_save=searchCategories¶m_letter
_group_script_save=¶m_chinese_checkbox_save=0¶m_services2filter_save=getFullTxt¶m_
current_view_save=detail¶m_subcategory_save=282¶m_jumpToPage_save=¶m_type_save=
textSearch¶m_category_save=25¶m_textSearchType_save=contains&
4. To create a shorter version of this URL, use this URL as your base:
http://tc.liblink.umn.edu/sfx_local/az?param_current_view_save=table¶m_category_search_type
_value=browseSubCategory¶m_category_value=25¶m_subcategory_active=1¶m_
subcategory_value=282¶m_perform_value=searchCategories#deep
5. Take the category value (in this case: category_save=25) and the subcategory value (subcategory_save=282) from the longer URL and plug it into the appropriate spots within the shorter base URL:
http://tc.liblink.umn.edu/sfx_local/az?param_current_view_save=table¶m_category_search_type_
value=browseSubCategory¶m_category_value=25¶m_subcategory_
active=1¶m_subcategory_value=282¶m_perform_value=searchCategories#deep
This URL can now be used in a webpage, LibData listing, blog, etc.
If you'd like to see this info as a Word doc, here it is
.
Let me know if you have any questions about this,
Lisa
The publisher of The European Journal of Psychiatry has informed that they are trying to make 2007 issues available next month. There are some issues with the Scielo Library Spain. If a patron needs an article, the publisher has sent me the pdf's for vol. 21 issues 1 & 2. If you have any questions, please let me know.
Amy
From Phil White in the US BMJ office.
A policy was implemented incorrectly which caused registered users to be prompted for registration each time they tried to access an archival issue. The problem has now been corrected and you should be able to access without registration now.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE ACCESS CHANGES
ALL BMJ Publishing Group Institutional Subscribers:
RE: Response to questions posted on the listserv.
With the recent effort to release what BMJPG refers to as the first installment of the "Journals Archival Legacy" project, (meaning that BMJPG is now digitizing and loading all archival content for the "specialty journals" from Volume 1 Issue 1) we have found that some communication/technical errors have occurred, and unintended policies were implemented for Institutional subscribers and staff.
Quite simply, as BMJPG implement the full loading of the archival information, there may be a mechanism in place for NON INSTITUTIONAL. NON-SUBSCRIBING users of the information to register in order to gain access to all archival information. BMJPG have not released the time frame of this new policy, but may request that user information be given in order to obtain access. Again, this is for persons without a subscription, or unaffiliated with a subscribing institution.
Please read below for BMJPG's correction. I'll will also quickly "bullet"
some points that will hopefully address some questions that I have seen and received.
ALL BMJ Archival Information older than 12 months is still free. As more
archival information is loaded over the course of the year per the
"legacy project", the free archival information will increase
exponentially!
Current subscribers are licensed to, and pay only for the last 12 months
of information, "Ahead of Print" information, and supplements. Archival
access is currently free for all!
BMJPG are happy to extend free archival access, and understand it's
value in giving you complete information.
BMJPG are aware of the complexity in accessing electronic information in
today's library, so Institutional and IP authenticated customers will
not be (and should not at this point) required to register at the time
of accessing archives/backfiles.
BMJPG's official time frame to have the technical aspect of the
registration completely taken down is Monday, April 9th. This may
happen sooner, but I will refrain from deviating from the date promised
by BMJ Publishing Group.
This is an exciting time for BMJ Publishing Group, licensed customers, and anyone needing premier content. The addition of more free information is a continuation of BMJPGs commitment to excellence. It is unfortunate that the "message" was delivered in a manner that missed the intended value, and apparently caused confusion and the perception of unwanted change and restriction.
Statement below.
Kind Regards,
Phil White
Amy Claussen
Hi -
FYI, I got this email from Amy Claussen this morning regarding access to Blood:
"I have submitted a help desk ticket for this e-journal. Currently, patrons cannot access Blood off-campus. If you get any questions about this journal, just let them know we are working to correct the problem. Thanks!
Amy"
Martha
Hello,
I was just notified today, via a Listserv, that BMJ will be releasing the full back archive of all 23 journals. This will mean that users can access all content older than 12 months. However, BMJ is also requiring users to register in order to access content and users will not be able to access this content via IP authentification. The first title to undergo this change is Journal of Clinical Pathology, which changed as of April 2. Users are verified via IP authentification when they access pdfs that are published within the most recent 12 months; however, they are routed to a sign in page if they try to access anything older than 12 months. I am anticipating that we will be receiving calls at the reference desk or through MedRef regarding access to the BMJ titles and will keep you posted as I find out more information.
Nicole
Hello,
I was just informed that Sage Publications is providing free access to all their journals including backfiles throughout this month. I wanted to pass this along in case there are patrons wondering why we have access to journals that do not appear in the E-Journals catalog or MNCAT. Please feel free to contact Amy or me if you have any E-journal questions.
Nicole
Hi all,
We've had reports via Medref and InfoPoint of problems accessing full-text via Find It links in PubMed and other databases to EBSCO host titles.
The problem with EBSCO is that you may be asked to login after clicking the Go button in Find It.
Technical staff are aware of this and are working on a fix, but in the interim if you run across this you might try these workarounds:
1.) Try clicking the Go button more than once. Sometimes, hitting it a second time is all it takes to push it to the article level in EBSCO
2. If #1 doesn't work, try erasing all of the citation data (year-volume-issue-page) from the boxes and then click Go. This should push you to the journal level in EBSCO and you can then browse for the issue you need.
I'll keep you posted of any fixes...
Lisa
All,
Here's more info from John Barneson about this problem:
Infopoint and others,
There are currently problems with the EBSCO parser in SFX. I've
contacted ExLibris and we are working on the problem. It seems if you
add issue or start page metadata then linking out fails and you are
redirected to an EBSCO login page (even if you are authenticated via
x.500). As many of you know, this parser has undergone heavy revision in
the last few months. If you resolve only to the Journal level linking
works. I've tested this with multiple journals and browsers and neither
affects the outcome. There are already a couple tickets for this
issue...
I hope to have this resolved asap.
~John
-
John Barneson
Info Tech Professional/Library Enterprise Operations (LEO)
University Libraries, 573 O. Meredith Wilson Library
309-19th Avenue South, University of Minnesota
phone: 612/624-7322, Minneapolis, MN 55455
email: barne102@umn.edu
Here is a brief recap of the information Lisa covered at the Reference Training meeting on 11/22, regarding access to electronic resources/sending PDFs of articles to patrons.
See the InfoPoint staff page (http://staff.lib.umn.edu/rcs/dist/ref/infopoint/) for resources that may be helpful to you when troubleshooting access to resources.
In addition to the information on the InfoPoint page, here is a brief blurb InfoPoint (IP) uses when they end up emailing a PDF to a patron who is having access difficulties. IP will only send out a PDF to an affiliated patron (faculty/staff/student) when they are having access problems to a resource and/or indicate a need for the information ASAP. Staff who do medref should also be aware of this and utilize the language below whenever emailing a PDF occurs.
Here is a template of text that IP includes when this happens:
We apologize for the difficulties you encountered in attempting to access the article needed from [Journal Name]. We are still working to resolve the access problem, but in the meantime are sending you the document you indicated needing. [The language in the first paragraph varies, depending on the situation]
Please note that this article is protected by copyright and licensing terms. This copy should be for your own personal use and not be distributed further. [These last two sentences should be included somewhere in the email every time we send a PDF of an article or other copyright-protected or licensed information].
Thanks for your patience.
If you have any questions, feel free to talk to Lisa.
Greetings,
Our membership in BioMed Central (BMC) has lapsed due to failure of BMC to contact us. Additionally, due to changes to the BMC pricing model in 2006 Linda and Katherine have decided to reexamine our level of membership support. I have asked Chad to post a notification on our Homepage today, 9/25, regarding this change and I will be sending notification of the change to faculty and researchers, many of them are in the basic sciences and are Kevin's former contacts.
If you should happen to field questions at the desk, please refer them to the notice on our homepage or use this accompanying final draft from Linda and Katherine as your message to our users.
Jim
BioMed Central Changes
The Health Sciences Libraries has supported open access publisher BioMed Central (BMC) through a membership fee which, until 2006, permitted unlimited waivers of the submission fee for University of Minnesota authors. Many of our faculty have taken advantage of this venue to share their research results with a world-wide audience.
This past year, BMC changed its membership accounting which is now based on the number of published articles. They assess us the entire submission fee, which averages $1350 per article in most categories (some types of non-research articles don’t assess author fees). Our membership for 2006 was for $10,000, which has now been exhausted. Going forward, our membership subscription will not accommodate payment of the submission fee, but rather a 15% discount on the fee; the remainder is the responsibility of the author, similar to page charges of other types of journals. Most of our colleagues around the country have taken a similar step, or did not renew at all, believing that the reporting of results through journal publication is an integral part of research that should be supported by funding sources as just one part of the cost of doing research.
We regret the late notice of this change, and that the transition wasn’t smoother. If you have any questions, please contact Katherine Chew at chewx002@umn.edu.
Hello Everyone,
There seems to be a problem in accessing titles from Journals@OVID through Find It and the E-journals page. When you try to access a title from Journals@OVID using SFX you end up in an endless Find It loop and can not access full text. You can however access these titles by going directly to Journals@OVID and them doing a browse search for the particles title, volume, issue, etc. I have filled out a help desk ticket for this problem and it appears that all the Journals@OVID are affected, although I have had intermittent success in accessing some titles and not others. Ex Libris has been notified of this problem. In the mean time if you have a patron who is having problems accessing a Journals@OVID titles have them go directly to Journals@OVID and leave SFX (Find It/E-journals catalog) out of the equation. Hopefully this will be a short term inconvenience, but let me know if there are any questions.
Nicole
I have received two emails about this problem this week and I am anticipating more. The Find It link for Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences does not work properly when you try to access this source from a database (I have found problems involving PubMed and OVID Medline). For some reason when you click on Go or Synergy Blackwell Journals link it takes you to www.annalsnyas.org and not the Blackwell-Synergy site. Unfortunately we do not have access to this title from annalsnyas.org so our users are seeing a message informing them that our subscription has expired when they try to download a pdf. Users can access online full text for the Annals from the E-journals catalog or MNCAT which take you to the Synergy site.
I filled out a help desk ticket so hopefully LEO/OIT can figure out why the Blackwell-Synergy link is being overridden. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Nicole
Hi all,
Here is some info from Jim Stemper about the license stipulations about sharing e-journal content from four providers. Might be good to keep in those dusty corners of our brains for possible future reference:
Science
AAAS
OK to email to U of MN-Twin Cities students/staff; not OK to email to an unaffiliated patron.
This right is not explicitly granted in the license, but the U's general counsel has advised us that in the absence of an explicit prohibition on sharing with affiliated users, that it is OK. Here is what we take to be the relevant wording (http://www.sciencemag.org/subscriptions/inst_terms_unlimited.dtl):
Licensee agrees to be bound by copyright law with respect to use of the site. Moderate downloading, printing, or saving of material for personal, scholarly, or educational, noncommercial use is permissible, only to the extent consistent with the "fair use" doctrine. Extensive downloading, printing, or saving of articles by Authorized Users is not permitted.
Nature
Nature Publishing Group
OK to email to U of MN-Twin Cities students/staff; not OK to email to an unaffiliated patron.
Our CIC (big 10) consortium added a new subsection to NPG's standard license, which states:
Authorized users may make all use of the Licensed Materials as is consistent with the Fair Use provisions of the United States and international law. Nothing in this Agreement is intended to limit in any way whatsoever the Licensee's or any authorized Users rights under the Fair Use provisions of the United States or international law to use the Licensed materials.
But it did not delete the standard prohibition on sharing with non-affiliates, noted below.
Ecology Letters
Journal of Evolutionary Biology
Blackwell
OK to email to U of MN-Twin Cities students/staff; not OK to email to an unaffiliated patron.
The Blackwell license states: "Authorised Users and Walk-in Users may, subject to Clause 4 below: ... 3.2.4 Distribute single copies of parts of the Licensed Material in print or electronic form to other Authorised Users" (http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/license/license.pdf).
Journal of Theoretical Biology
Elsevier
OK to email to U of MN-Twin Cities students/staff OR to an unaffiliated patron.
The specific Elsevier license wording is: "The Authorized Users may: transmit Excerpts to other Authorized Users and to third-party colleagues for their scholarly or research use" (http://info.sciencedirect.com/licensing/samplelicense/sample_license_academic.pdf).
And all of the licenses have very standard wording to the effect of "Sharing of the licensed material with anyone other than authorized users, except as outlined here, is prohibited." So unless the right to share with outsiders is stated explicitly as above with Elsevier, you don't have it.
If you're interested, here's some more information from Betsy about the e-journal links in MNCAT and the MarcIt load:
SFX people in the various areas are notified about when a MarcIt load is going to take place - Nicole gets the notice at Bio-Med.
MARCit is a service we buy from SFX/ExLibris in order to bring our e-journals into the catalog. We export our active titles from our SFX instance, as well as the titles from the other campus instances. The titles are sent to SFX and they return to us files of records. We have to do fresh exports each time because of the multiple instance situation, which means we have to overlay records in the system. There are 4 points in the process that cause reindexing (so the records disappear for a couple of minutes each time): record overlay, holdings replacement and then the appending of the 856/866 on the holdings, and the deletion of the 856/866 from the bib records.
We would actually like to be able to do this every couple of weeks, so that the catalog stays more current. We will not do this until we can perfect and shorten our loading method. We'd also like to be able to do the whole load at night, but that may be a while.
The A-Z list (e-journal) database is the most current record of our e-holdings.
Liz
Links to e-journals are now available in MNCAT again. A reminder - the e-journals database is the most up-to-date, so always check there if you're not finding an e-journal in MNCAT.
Nicole sent me some further explanation about the e-journals/MNCAT situation:
"Betsy is in the process of loading E-journal records from SFX into Aleph (these are the MarcIt records). This whole process requires her to strip out the "old" MarcIt records and then replace them with the new ones. This process should happen monthly, but does not always. It does take a while for these records to appear in MNCAT as Janet explained - I hope for Bio-Med that everything is up and running by the end of today, but in the past it has taken longer."
So, if you ever encounter the situation again, that's what's happening.
Liz
This morning we had a call from a patron looking for e-journals using the Journals catalog in MNCAT. She was looking up a journal she knew we had electronic access to (American Journal of Epidemiology). However, the MNCAT record listed the paper holding but did not have the link for the e-journal. We tried with a few other journal titles, using both the full MNCAT and the Journals catalog, and the same thing happened - paper holdings but no e-journal link.
I called Janet Arth, and she said that phenomenon is caused by the monthly Aleph update - something about a process that deletes the current links and puts in new ones, so we happened to catch it between those two steps. It's now almost 4 hours since we first noticed this situation and there are still no e-journal links, but apparently this is normal.
You can still access the e-journals by using the e-journals database, even when the links don't appear in MNCAT. So, if you go into MNCAT and notice that all the e-journal links are gone, don't panic - use the e-journals database, and the links will be back in MNCAT soon.
Let me know if you have questions. Thanks!
Liz
In response to a question from some Nursing faculty, I recently learned that we have a pretty tight cap on the number of concurrent users allowed in Journals@Ovid titles. Here's the word from Katherine:
"For any title through Journals@Ovid, the limit is one user per title -- three users per Journals@Ovid. That is, there can be three users in Journals@Ovid, but they all can't be looking at the same title. The title/article/session times out after 15 minutes or as soon as the article/title is released by the user."
So, if users are getting a "licenses exceeded" message trying to get into Ovid full text, this is probably why. This came up in the context of FindIt links for course reserves, where an entire class may be trying to get to the same article. We should also encourage students to click the logoff button after they're done looking at the article so that it's available for other students more quickly.
Just a FYI. I didn't know about this - maybe I'm the only one. :)
Thanks!
Liz
Hello Everyone,
This is more of an FYI. I received two emails this morning about an expired online subscription to the AHA journals, which includes: Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, & Vascular Biology, Circulation, Hypertension, Circulation Research, and Stroke. What is happening is that patrons are not noticing the Find It link to the Journals@OVID source which includes access to the most recent issues. Instead they are selecting the Highwire Free Press link which has a one year embargo on all the AHA titles except Circulation Research, which we do have access to the most recent issues through Highwire as well as Journals@OVID. I don't know if people will be calling the reference desk or email medref, but I wanted everyone to be aware of this.
Please let me know if there are any other questions.
Nicole
Hello All!
In case anyone is wondering where the E-journals are in the Twin Cities catalog (MNCAT)…There was a MarcIt load of E-journals today, which uses an enhanced feature in SFX to import E-journal bib records into the catalog. During this process all the old SFX generated records are wiped out and replaced with new and updated ones. Today 20,000+ records were loaded which has caused a delay in their appearance in the Twin Cities catalog. The records should be in the TC catalog soon (maybe by the time this is sent), but if a patron is using MNCAT and wondering why there is not an online record for a particular journal have them check the E-journals page and/or the All Campus Catalog. Just remember that we only have access to TC Internet Resources. Let me know if there are any other questions concerning this.
Nicole
Recently there have been several questions about accessing the most current issues of Circulation, and other Highwire Free titles. There are two links to Circulation, one for Highwire Free Press and another for Journals@OVID. We have access to the most current issues of Circulation only through Journals@OVID; there is a one year embargo on the Highwire Free Press articles. However, if you try to access articles published within the last year through Highwire you get this confusing message: Your institution's online subscription to "Circulation" has EXPIRED as of 22 Apr 2005. Don't fret, just steer users to the Journals@OVID link and they should get what they need. Feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.
Nicole
The username to access Lancet online via thelancet.com (this is the second link listed in the MNCAT record) should be Biomedlib, with a capital B. I have notified the powers that set up the proxy URLs so hopefully this should be fixed shortly. There is also a problem in accessing the username/password through SFX, so try to use the MNCAT link if possible.
If you have any questions let me know.
Nicole
As some of you may have heard, Wilson and the LEO office started loading MARCit records into MNCAT this week. The loading of these records provides links from the catalog to the SFX Find It links; including catalog access to online content receive through aggregators. It may take a while for these records to fully load into the Twin Cities catalog, but they should be in the All Campuses Catalog. If you are having difficulties finding a link to an online journal, you may want to check the All Campuses Catalog for the next couple of days. I have already found one title that we have online access to that is not in the Twin Cities Catalog, but is in the All Campuses Catalog. Let me know if you have any questions.
Nicole
This is a gentle reminder to be sure check our E-journals page for titles that we may have access to through one of our big aggregated packaged, that are not cataloged in MNCAT.
I ran across this situation with Medical Education, which was cancelled in 2001, and a patron had made an ILL request for a number of articles from 2002-2004. Fortunately Steve caught this for me.
Jim
This from Chris Koehler, tech services in St. Paul. In case you get questions about the basic sciences or vet titles at the ref desk:
"We are having a problem accessing the Blackwell's titles for which we have
standard access which is the current plus previous year. This problem
appears to be for the St.Paul campus subscribed journals only. I sent an
email to Blackwells on Friday and have not received a response, so I sent
another email today. We have had this problem with our Blackwells titles
before and it has been resolved quickly in the past, but if I don't hear
from them today I will try contacting them via phone tomorrow. Once access
has been restored, I will send out another email to you."
Incidentally, given Blackwell's record on this it may prove very easy for me to choose some St. Paul journals to cancel for 2006...
-Kevin
There have been many reports of patrons having problems accessing the New England Journal of Medicine online. Just today a patron was unable to access the NEJM on campus using Internet Explore (6.0), but was able to access it with Netscape. I called NEJM to report this incident. If these access problems continue to happen please including the patron's IP address if accessing on campus, if off campus I want to know if they are being promoted for their password, if they have a pop-up blocker, what type of browser, and time of day and date.
Frontiers in Bioscience, a journal we subscribe to only in electronic format, gets my nomination for the Most Confusing Electronic Journal Award (if you have others, let me know). My reasons are two-fold:
1. not only is this one of the few e-journals that requires patrons to enter a publisher password (in addition to first using their U of M ID and password to view the password), THERE IS A DIFFERENT PUBLSHER PASSWORD FOR EACH YEAR OF PUBLICATION, and
2. once on the publisher's page, there are several options for viewing the full text articles, including "PDF Type I" and "PDF Type II." Our subscription is for PDF Type I, which is a lower quality scan of the article, but much less expensive subscription cost than the higher quality Type II.
Try displaying the full text of the following article, and you'll see the possible sources of confusion:
Single microassay for matrix degrading enzymes
Mahesh Mathrubutham and Srinivasa.K.Rao
[Frontiers in Bioscience 6, a13-16, April 1, 2001]
We have gotten two questions about this journal just in the last week, so I suspect there will continue to be more in the future.
Kathy
This month (April), we have received several calls from patrons who are still being asked for a username and password when they try to access an AMA e-journal. Earlier in 2004, while the license was being worked out, patrons did need a special AMA username and password to view full text, but they shouldn't anymore.
It seems that the patrons who are still being asked for username and password have a cached copy/URL of the AMA e-journal in the browser on their computer. The problem has been solved either by having the patron clear the cache and history in their browser, or in one case when that didn't work, the patron had to reinstall their browser in order to fix the problem.
If you have any questions about this, please ask Jim, Lisa, or me.
Thanks, Kathy
U of M TC patrons now have access to electronic full text of articles from the American Journal of Physiology from 1966 to present. The older articles are part of what is called "AJP Legacy," but the same URL will access all the years for this journal (and it's confusing sections (e.g., AJP Cell Physiology).
The IP access for AMA journals is working! No need for the usernames and passwords. All links have been updated in MNCAT.
I have received the new username and password for the AMA journals.
username: amajnls4
password: sprngfevr
--Ashley
Wiley e-journal subscriptions have developed an occasional problem that, upon trying to access full text, the user is told that there are insufficient "tokens" available at your institution. We should not get this message.
Our recent problem seems to be fixed now (thanks Ashley!). If this happens again, just contact Ashley so she can get in touch with Wiley. It seems to be a fairly straightforward fix at Wiley's end.
-Kevin
I've set up online access for Bio-Med staff to the Chronicle of Higher Education at their web site http://www.chronicle.com
I'll send out the username and password today to staff as well as place that information in the rolodex at the reference desk.
---Lisa
This is more a collections/financial issue than a reference one, but questions may come up at the desk about BioMed Central. They are altering their pricing model, and the change could create quite a mess.
-Kevin
From LJAN:
>
> ****************TODAY'S NEWS*****************
> EVOLUTION IN OPEN ACCESS: BIOMED CENTRAL ALTERS ITS
> MEMBERSHIP MODEL
> Although it initially offered institutional memberships on
> a flat fee basis, open access publisher BioMed Central
> (BMC) has sent notice to its members and supporters that
> institutional memberships for 2005 will now be renewed
> calculated on an estimated "per article published" basis.
> Under BMC's open access model, access to all content,
> including databases, archives and peer-reviewed journals,
> is completely free for users. Costs are instead recouped
> through author processing charges (APCs). Under the BMC
> model currently in force, however, APCs for those who opt
> for "institutional memberships" are waived in exchange for
> the flat rate membership fee. That means researchers at
> member institutions can submit and publish freely all
> accepted articles with BMC. Currently, the BMC web site
> lists U.S. flat fees ranging from $1612 to $8000 depending
> on institution size.
>
> That model, however, produced "unfair side effects" earlier
> than anticipated, explained BioMed Central publisher Jan
> Velterop in a message to Yale Unviersity's Liblicense electronic
> discussion list. "While we started off with a flat
> membership fee, based on the number of potential
> researchers in a given institution," wrote Velterop, "some
> institutions generated far more articles than others." As
> such, for 2005, BioMed Central announced it would "link
> fees to the past record of publication as a proxy." Should
> researchers at a member institution publish 10 articles
> during their 2005 membership, their membership bill would
> be the number of articles (10) multiplied by the APC ($525)
> for a base fee of $5250. That figure could be adjusted
> downward by additional qualifying discounts. The new scheme
> will only apply for renewals. BioMed Central has grown
> steadily since its launch in 1999. It now numbers some 400
> institutional members, including a major deal in 2003 with
> the UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) for all
> researchers in the United Kingdom (See LJ Academic Newswire
> 6/19/03). While exact figures were not released, the BMC
> web site notes that January 2004 saw "a record number" of
> submissions to BMC, more than double the number from
> January 2003.
>
> ----------------------------------------
> A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE? LIBRARIANS TAKEN ABACK BY BIOMED
> CENTRAL CHANGE
> It was hardly a surprise that nascent open access publisher
> BioMed Central may (BMC) have needed to adjust its business
> model. What was surprising, however, notes Cornell
> University librarian Phil Davis, was that news of the
> change "broke" on Yale Univerity's Liblicense electronic discussion
> list. "There was no forewarning of the new pricing model to
> anyone," Davis told the LJ Academic Newswire. "I think [BMC
> publisher] Jan Velterop was not on the same page as the
> rest of his marketing group, and his postings created a
> flurry of policy actions from the company. I don't entirely
> blame Jan. I think BMC is trying to figure their model out
> as the go along. Unfortunately, it is undermining the
> credibility in their product." Velterop apologized to
> librarians on Liblicense for any confusion over the change.
> But this week, librarians expressed frustration about a
> possible communication breakdown with BMC, as well as
> deeper concerns over the BMC change itself. "One of the
> chief problems with the current or traditional subscription
> model is that authors are completely desensitized to the
> cost of publishing," Davis explained. With the BMC change
> for 2005, "moving to an institutional membership is no
> different in that we will keep the author removed from the
> price...it is potentially a suicidal model in terms of our
> budget."
>
> "Many of us are upset," added Tom Williams, professor and
> Director of the Biomedical Libraries at the University of
> South Alabama College of Medicine. Williams told the LJ
> Academic Newswire he was "horrified" when he saw the change
> on Liblicense, and called his BMC representative, who told
> him the planned change had in fact been in place
> previously. Williams, however, insists he and his fellow
> librarians were caught unaware. "We signed only a few
> months ago, and there was never any mention of moving to
> per-article changes, not ever was this made clear to us."
> Williams' library currently pays roughly $1300 for BMC
> membership as part of a consortium deal that includes
> roughly 20 medical libraries throughout the South. "That's
> quite reasonable," he notes. "Under that model I can save
> my people money. But what [BMC] is doing now is
> transferring the cost of publication from scholars to the
> library." While Williams says the BMC product is a good
> one, the recent change has left him somewhat dubious of
> BMC's business. "It looks like they used us," he said. "We
> marketed this for them. We told all our researchers these
> journals were out there and you can publish in them. Now it
> looks like this was a sweetheart deal so we would do the
> marketing for them, increase people submitting to them. Now
> that they've gotten the business, the deal changes."
> Williams said that the BMC change could "absolutely" impact
> his institution's decision to renew BMC membership for
> 2005. "We couldn't afford it," he said flatly. "If our
> faculty published 100 articles that would be over $50,000."