Library Technology Guides

---

Volume 17 Number 06 (June 1997)

Electronic journal subscriptions in academic libraries

In a recent survey the Contributing Editor queried a group of academic libraries regarding their subscriptions to electronic journals. Answers were received from 68 libraries. The number of electronic journals received by these 68 libraries ranged from none to 1,800. Only four (six percent) said they subscribe to more than 100 electronic journals. Only twenty (29 percent) subscribe to more than 50 titles at this time. Given the unusually wide range of numbers reported by the respondents, and the fact that published estimates of the number of electronic journals range between 250 and 700, some of the libraries subscribing to more than 50 titles were called to determine their definition of an electronic journal.

One library considers all journals published in an electronic format, including on CD-ROM, as electronic journals. A full-text or image backfile of journals published on CD-ROM and made available to students and faculty constitutes the vast majority of what that library considers to be its electronic journal collection. Given this definition for electronic journals, the total number of electronic journals available is probably over 5,000.

The vast majority of the respondents consider as electronic journals only those which are published exclusively in electronic form, or those which are published simultaneously in electronic print versions. Republication of a print publication at a later date does not meet these libraries' definition. Given this definition, the total number of electronic journals available is probably about 700, with approximately 30 percent available only in electronic form.

Five libraries count as electronic journals only those which are available online. A CD-ROM version is not counted even if it is delivered at the same time as the print version. Two libraries count as electronic journals only those published exclusively in electronic form. One of the libraries limits its definition further to journals which are peer-reviewed as only they are fully comparable to other scholarly journals. Using the strictest definition, the total number of electronic journals is probably under 100.

We favor the definition used by the majority of the respondents: an electronic journal is one published in electronic form on a current basis, with a print equivalent coming out no earlier than the electronic journal. As stated above we estimate that there are currently about 700 electronic journals from about 100 publishers which meet this definition. The vast majority of these come from about 40 publishers in science, technology, and medicine. Almost all of these require payment of a subscription fee. To the question of how they order their electronic journals, about one half place subscriptions directly with the publisher, the other half place their orders through a subscription agency or with an online reference service which will provide a common user interface for titles from different sources.

The two most frequently mentioned solutions for obtaining electronic journals from a single source were ADONIS and OCLC- two very different approaches.

ADONIS EJS (Electronic Journal Subscriptions) offers the full content of 400 scientific, technical, and medical journals in electronic form on CD-ROM, updated weekly so that the information is as current as the print equivalent. The subscription price incorporates unlimited site access with no requirement to seek copyright clearance. ADONIS EJS guarantees perpetual access to the journal content for those years to which a customer has subscribed.

OCLC has negotiated agreements to make some 260 scientific, technical, and medical electronic journals available on its FirstSearch Electronic Collections Online Service. It is in negotiation for an additional 200.

Subscribers to the OCLC service may buy subscriptions to a title or to groups of titles. The user interface supports both basic and advanced searching. OCLC will profile user subscriptions, both current and discontinued, and will provide subscribers perpetual access to all journals to which they have subscriptions for those years for which payment was made.

Seventeen OCLC customers, including several respondents to the Contributing Editor's survey, have been working with a preproduction version of the new service. One customer, the University of California System, is integrating Electronic Collections Online with MELVYL, the union catalog and citation database system for nine campuses.

What both of these services have in common is the availability of backfiles after a library has discontinued its subscription to the current electronic journal. This is deemed an important feature by respondents. The relatively high cost of electronic journals and uncertainty about future pricing make it imperative that a library be able to go to another source or revert to the print subscription without losing access to the years of a subscription for which it has paid.

We learned recently that Ovid, a major online reference service, will expand its full-text offering to 500 journals by the end of 1997. The company is focusing on the areas of science, technology, and medicine. The offering will complement the bibliographic databases which have been available for several years. Electronic coverage will be from 1995 onward, and individual subscriptions can be ordered on a calendar year basis. Exact prices have not yet been determined, but will be based upon a two-tier pricing model. Organizations with a print subscription to a particular journal will be charged a lower rate than those that subscribe only to the electronic version. Access to electronic backfiles if the current subscription is discontinued, are not explicitly guaranteed.

The most comprehensive directory of electronic journals is that maintained by the Association of Research Libraries at its Web site: http//arl.cni.org/. Titled "Directory of Electronic Journals and Newsletters," the site includes 1,700 entries, including approximately 700 which clearly meet the definition of "electronic journal" which we favor.

[Contact: ADONIS, 350 Main Street, Sixth Floor, Malden, MA 02148-5018; e-mail CHoman@adonis.nl; 800-944-6415; FAX 617- 388-8272; OCLC, 6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, OH 43017-3395; 614-764-6000; FAX 614-764-6096; Ovid Technologies, 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001; 800- 950-2035.]

Innovative purchases SLS

Innovative Interfaces, Inc., has purchased SLS Information Systems of Great Britain. SLS has over 700 installations in Europe, including more than 50 in academic libraries. Its primary product, known as "Libertas," runs on Digital AXP computers using OpenVMS as the operating system and FORTRAN and "C" as the programming languages. The DBMS is proprietary.

SLS was owned by 16 UK universities. Innovative purchased all of the outstanding stock for cash. The deal includes subsidiaries in Scandinavia (Stockholm) and Spain (Madrid) . SLS currently has a staff of 46 people.

Innovative has committed to issuing an enhancement release for Libertas in the Summer of 1997 but has not said whether it will continue to develop Libertas as a separate product or seek to migrate the customers to its new Millennium product.

The acquisition comes at a time when Innovative is experiencing strong sales worldwide having signed 20 new accounts in the first three months of 1997.

[Contact: Innovative Interfaces, Inc., 5850 Shellmound, Emeryville, CA 94608; 510-655-6200; FAX 510-450-6350; e-mail Info@iii.com; Web http://www.iii.com.]

Correction

Table 6 in the March-April, 1997, issue of LSN-the table which summarized the ratio of customer support staff to the number of installed systems for vendors which have installed at least 50 multi-user, multi-function systems- omitted the ratio for Ex Libris. The ratio is 1:7, thus placing Ex Libris in the upper half of vendors in respect to this important ratio.

Inmagic discontinues DOS product

Inmagic, which has sold thousands of copies of its database manager software to special libraries and others, is dis-continuing the DOS product line, including INMAGIC Plus and SearchMAGIC Plus. It is offering free single-user versions of the products to those who access the com-pany's Web site (http://www.inmagic.com), click on "products," and download to a PC.

The Windows-based versions of the products, known as DB/TextWorks and DB/Text WebPublisher, remain available for sale.

[Contact: Inmagic, Inc., 800 West Cummings Park, Woburn, MA 01801; 617-938- 4442; FAX 617-938-6393.]

TLC establishes a market position for Library.Solution

The Library Corporation (TLC), best known for its BiblioFile cataloging support system, is becoming a factor in the multi-user, multi-function systems market with "Library Solution." Its recent sales to Ascension Parish Library in Louisiana and the U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School in South Carolina bring the customer base of the relatively new product to 46 libraries.

The product, which was introduced in the fourth quarter of 1996, is one of the first to be offered using the Windows NT operating system. The database management system is Oracle, and the programming language is Visual C++. Modules include cataloging with authority control, circulation, inventorying, online patron access catalog, report generator, and electronic mail. There are GUI (graphical user interfaces) available for technical services and the online patron access catalog. There also is a Web OPAC. Z39.50 client/server is supported.

[Contact: The Library Corporation, Research Park, Inwood, WV 25428-9733; 304-229-0100; FAX 304-228-0285; Web page http://www.tlcdelivers.com.]

Thin clients versus inexpensive PCs

There is a great deal of hype about so-called "thin clients" or "network computers" as remote peripherals to automated library systems. They are intelligent devices with limited memory and no disk storage-not unlike the "x-terminals" of five years ago. They generally cost from $750 to $1,000.

The potential savings claimed for thin clients or network computers lie not in their hardware cost, but in the reduced cost of managing them. For example, if applications are resident on a server awaiting downloading as Java applets when needed, fewer hours will be needed to reconfigure PCs as new software releases become available. However, widespread use of Java in library automation probably is three years away, therefore, so are the savings.

Libraries have two other hardware options: an inexpensive new PC or a second-hand PC. Each option offers greater versatility than that of a thin client or network computer at comparable cost.

Compaq is now offering its Presario 2100, a Pentium 133 with 24MB of memory, 2.0GB of hard disk, and Sx CD-ROM drive for $999; Packard Bell sells a comparable model, the Multimedia 0115, for $799. By shopping around one can reduce these prices by at least ten percent.

There also is a thriving second-hand market for Pentium 133 and 166 machines. These generally cost $550 to $750. Some dealers are willing to extend a 30-day unrestricted right of return.

Sun has already demonstrated technology that will convert 486 and Pentium-based Windows and DOS PCs into thin clients or network computers. To take advantage of Sun's technology, one installs Project Rescue code. The code, which includes the Java Virtual Machine, does not erase Windows or DOS, but disables DOS when it is in Java execution mode.

LC seeks to implement an integrated library system

The Library of Congress' 1997-98 budget request includes $5.6 million to "start an integrated library system at the Library." It would integrate the various functions now performed on several different machines, including acquisitions, serials control, binding preparation, cataloging, circulation, and online public access catalog.

Z39.50 takes hold in Europe

We have regularly reported on the increasing use of Z39.50 for the linking of automated library systems in North America. There also is considerable activity in Europe. There are now 51 networks in the European Union relying on Z39.50 to link over 200 systems from more than a score of automated library system vendors. The information was included in a presentation by Ariane Iljon, Head of Electronic Publishing and Libraries, European Union at the Fifteenth Annual Conference of Research Library Directors at OCLC.

For those who would like more information about Z39.50, an excellent new source is the Z39.50 Resource Directory located online at http://www.sirsi.com/Zresources/zlinks.html. In addition to providing useful information about the history and application of the protocol, it has links to a large number of other sites.

Specifying CAT 5 UTP

The current standard for data cabling is category 5 UTP (unshielded twisted pair). However, the standard applies to the data transfer characteristics of the cabling, not its construction. Of particular concern in the construction of data cabling is its resistance to fire when installed in plenums. There is a standard that deals with this aspect of cabling, UL 444. Almost all Cat 5 UTP meets UL 444 at the time of manufacture, but there is reason to believe that there are long-term changes in fire performance with time, temperature, moisture, and other environmental conditions.

A Technical Advisory Panel was convened by Underwriters Laboratory in mid-April to determine whether new requirements are needed to address the impact of aging on fire performance. Until a revised standard is published, libraries may wish to specify that Cat 5 UTP be insulated 100 percent with materials that have demonstrated long-term fire performance. The most widely used of these materials is a fluoropolymer identified as FEP. The best known brand name is Dupont's ''Teflon."

OCLC PromptCat service has fourteen participants

Fourteen book jobbers now participate in OCLC's PromptCat service-a service which delivers a cataloging record to a library for any book ordered from a participating book jobber for which there is a machine-readable record in the OCLC database. The book jobbers which participate are Academic Book Center, Ambassador Book Service, Baker & Taylor, Blackwell North America, Book Clearinghouse, Brodart, Casalini Libri, DA Information Services, Eastern Book Company, Ibersbook International, Majors Scientific Books, Puvill Libros, Rittenhouse Book Distributors, and Yankee Book Peddler.

[Contact: OCLC, 6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, OH 43017-3395; 614-764-6000; FAX 614-764- 6096 or any affiliated regional network.]

UnCover and Catchword introduce new document delivery service

UnCover, which indexes more than 17,000 journal titles, will augment its photocopy-based document delivery service with online document delivery via the Internet. The new service is the result an agreement with Catchword, a British Internet solution provider for publishers of scholarly journals.

Catchword maintains a network of servers around the world which access a large database of journal articles in full-text format, but augmented with images of tables, graphics, and diagrams. The output, therefore, reproduces the look of the original text.

For those journal titles for which UnCover and Catchword have permission from the publisher to link a citation in the UnCover database to the full-text in the Catchword database, UnCover will provide real-time online access. There is no charge for the software one has to download to access the information, but there are pay-per-view or subscription charges for access to the articles.

[Contact: UnCover, 3801 B. Florida Avenue, Suite 200, Denver, CC 80210; 303-758-3030; FAX 3C3-758-5946; Web http://www.carl.org/uncover.]

H.W. Wilson select full text on FirstSearch

The OCLC FirstSearch service is adding H.W. Wilson Select Full Text in July. The database of more than 430 periodical titles will include a detailed index, abstracts, and full-text ASCII for each record. Both per-search and subscription options will be available.

Full text will be added in the second half of 1997 to the five other Wilson databases already available on FirstSearch: Readers' Guide Abstracts, Social Sciences Abstracts, Humanities Abstracts, General Science Abstracts, and Wilson Business Abstracts.

[Contact: OCLC, 6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, OH 43017-3395; 614-764-6000; FAX 614-764-6096 or an OCLC regional network.]

WLN announces catalog card service

Now that the Library of Congress has discontinued the sale of catalog cards, more than 10,000 North American libraries which have purchased cards from that source in the past few years need to look elsewhere. An option which might be overlooked is WLN, the bibliographic utility serving primarily libraries in the Pacific Northwest.

WLN offers catalog card services to non-member libraries at a price of $1.75 per set. For an additional $.20 it will provide spine and pocket labels. The WLN database contains over ten million bibliographic records. WLN offers extensive profiling so that a library can obtain cards with Dewey or LC numbers of specified length; LC, NLM, and NAL subject headings are available.

[Contact: WLN, 4224 Sixth Avenue, SE, Bldg. 3, Lacey, WA 98509; 800-DIALWLN: FAX 360-923-4009.]

ISPs remain free of local charges

The Federal Communications Commission does not plan to make Internet Service Providers (ISPs) pay local access charges. Although the FCC will not officially publish its decision until it finishes work on other ISP issues, a number of ISPs have been informally notified.

The FCC will go ahead with a change in rate structure for multi-line residential and non-residential customers. Non-residential customers will pay a per-line flat fee of $9 per month, up from $5.60 per month. For heavy Internet users, the per-line flat fee will cost less than having ISPs pay $.03l per minute for access.

Documentation regarding the FCC's rate reform plan are available at its Web site at http://www.fcc.gov/.

Ten libraries win national digital library program awards

The ten first-year winners in the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Library Program competition are Brown University, Denver Public, Duke University, Harvard University, New York Public, North Dakota State University, Ohio Historical Society, University of Chicago, University of North Carolina, and University of Texas. The awards range in value from $15,628 to $74.956 for digitizing projects which include photos of native Americans, African American sheet music, 19th century Southern diaries and memoirs, and a number of other historically significant collections. The winners were selected from a total of 80 applications.

Summaries of the projects available on LC's Web site at http://lcweb2.loc.gov.amnmem/award/.

The goal of the National Digital Library Program is to make millions of images freely available on the Web by the year 2000.

DRA expands as national ISP

DRA, a major vendor of automated library systems, has become a national ISP (Internet Service Provider), with its focus on libraries and other information providers. There now are four geographically dispersed POPs (Points of Presence) in St. Louis, Chicago, Santa Clara (CA) and Washington (DC). Each connects to DRAs high-speed (45Mbps) ATM backbone.

Among the major libraries using DPA as its ISP is the Library of Congress. It has a 10Mbps fiber optic loop to DRA's Washington POP.

[Contact: DRA, 1276 North Warson Road, St. Louis, MC 63132-1806; 800-325-0888; FAX 314-993-8927; Web home page http://www.dra.com.]

Canon introduces 33.6 KBPS laser fax machines

Today's fax machines generally transmit at 9,600 bps (bits per second) That seems very slow when compared with electronic mail-which is sent at 33,300 bps or 33.3 Kbps if one has a PC with the fastest modem which conforms to a published standard. Canon has met the challenge by introducing two new fax machines. The Canon 9000 can scan up to 80 pages into memory and then transmit them at 600 dpi (dots per inch) at a speed of 33.6 Kbps. The model 9500 can support as many as 592 pages in memory.

The machines are priced at $2,995 and $3,995 respectively.

[Contact: Canon USA, 800-652-2666.]

The MXX chip explained

An increasing number of Pentium PCs are being offered with an MXX chip. While the chip adds $50 to $100 to the cost of a PC, it is worth it if the PC is to be used for multimedia applications. The chip has a large number of new instructions etched into its face to handle frequently performed multimedia applications more quickly. The downloading of sound, images, and motion video is approximately 20 percent faster with the new chip.

EBSCO renames and reissues CD-ROM Handbook

The new name for Ebsco's CD-ROM Handbook is the Electronic Media Catalog. The catalog, which is issued annually, includes not only CD-ROM titles, but also electronic publications available via the Internet, the Web, on tape, or on diskette. The following information is included: title name and producer, frequency, content description, hardware and software requirements, platform, Ebsco order number, and price.

There is no charge for the catalog. It may be ordered by fax or e-mail.

[Contact: Ebsco Catalog Coordinator, FAX 205-995-1636; e-mail kkosi.@ebsco.com.]

Human relations area files on Cd-Rom and the Web

The Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) , an extensive collection of cultural information for education and research found in many academic libraries on microfiche, are now available both on CD-ROM and on the Web. Key features of the CD-ROM version include Boolean and full-text searching with hyperlinks to citations, graphics, footnotes, etc. The collections are indexed at the paragraph level by subject categories defined in the Outline of Cultural Materials (OCM) OCM categories can be searched across cultures.

The recently introduced Web version makes it possible to search the entire collection in a single search, rather than swapping CD-ROMs.

Reduced fees are available to consortia, thus making it increasingly possible for small academic, public, and school libraries to have access to HRAF.

[Contact: HRAF, 755 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511-1225; 203-764-9401; FAX 203-764-9404; Web address http://www.yale.edu.hraf/home.html.]

Translation software for PCs

We recently began to use a translation software package for PCs for French and Spanish-languages we didn't take in school. Our major applications have been translating Web pages and e-mail messages. The results have been surprisingly good. We could make out the gist of the translated text in every case. we verified the accuracy of the software by translating to and from German-a language we do know quite well. The translation was nearly 75 percent accurate. This is as good as a mainframe-based package a university we know has been using. For that reason, we recommend Easy Translator.

Easy Translator translates standard ASCII text and HTML texts from and to French, German, and Spanish. When used to translate web pages or e-mail messages received over the Internet, the appropriate procedure is to copy the text to the Clipboard, translate the text on the Clipboard, and then paste the translated text into any other document.

The package, which is available from most major software retailers for $49 or less, requires a 386 or higher PC, 8MB of memory, 15 MB of disk space, and Windows 3.1, Windows 95, or Windows NT.

---

Maintained by Marshall Breeding

Copyright 1994-2024