August 03, 2007
Library drops BioMed Central's Open Access membership
After careful consideration, the Cushing/Whitney Medical and the Science Libraries have decided to end their support for BioMed Central's Open Access publishing effort. The libraries previously covered 100% of the author article charges which allowed these papers to be made freely available worldwide via the Internet at time of publication. This experiment in Open Access publishing has proved unsustainable. The libraries' support will continue for all Yale-authored articles currently in submission to BioMed Central as of July 27, 2007.
The libraries’ BioMedCentral membership represented an opportunity to test the technical feasibility and the business model of this OA publisher. While the technology proved acceptable, the business model failed to provide a viable long-term revenue base built upon logical and scalable options. Instead, BioMedCentral has asked libraries for larger and larger contributions to subsidize their activities. Starting with 2005, BioMed Central article charges cost the libraries $4,658, comparable to a single biomedicine journal subscription. The cost of article charges for 2006 then jumped to $31,625. The article charges have continued to soar in 2007 with the libraries charged $29,635 through June 2007, with $34,965 in potential additional article charges in submission.
As we deal with unprecedented increases in electronic resources, we have had to make hard choices about which resources to keep. At this point we can no longer afford to support the BioMedCentral model.
We believe in the widest possible access to scholarly research supported by workable business models and should BioMedCentral develop a viable economic model which allows them to more equitably share costs across all interested stakeholders, we would consider renewing our financial support.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns about this policy.
Ann Okerson, Associate University Librarian for Collections, Yale University Library
R. Kenny Marone, Director, Medical Library
David Stern, Director, Science Libraries
Posted by dstern at 11:03 AM | Comments (2)
October 18, 2006
Reducing Paper Journals
After use and faculty ranking analysis the following titles will remain in paper, as they are either necessary in paper format or unavailable in an online version. (Additional titles may be added after reviewing the few remaining direct publisher orders.)
REMINDER: Our list of online journals is now the best tool to locate most journals.
Posted by dstern at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2005
Electronic Journal Migration
Science Libraries Journal Analysis and Action Plan
Dear research community,
The library has two time-dependent concerns that require your input. The first is the issue of maintaining only essential paper journals when there are adequate and reliable electronic equivalents. The second concern is creating space for future growth through the transfer of selected low use materials to the off-site Library Shelving Facility (LSF).
Reducing paper journals when adequate online equivalents exist
Most researchers now rely on electronic journals for delivery of traditional published information. The use of paper journals in the Science Libraries is almost zero for titles with equivalent online access. We have greatly expanded our electronic journal collections in recent years. In addition, many publishers are digitizing previous years of their journals; often back to the first issues. We have purchased the rights to these back files for all available titles, thereby greatly expanding the depth of online collections available to the Yale community.
The complete list of electronic journals can be found at
http://www.library.yale.edu/journals/
It is now time to reduce costs and staff workload by switching to electronic-only access for a large portion of our electronic journal subscriptions.
Our intention is to move to electronic-only for almost all journals.
Personal preference for paper will not be an adequate reason to retain paper in most cases.
The Yale Science libraries will be joining all other major science libraries around the world in migrating to online-only journals when possible. We will be spending the next year identifying those titles that must remain in paper for two reasons:
1. Equivalent content is not available online
2. Use is adversely affected (e.g., image quality, browsing of charts)
Please contact us if you have a need for any specific paper journal. The comment form is located at
http://www.library.yale.edu/science/services/paperjournals.html
To address common concerns:
· Researchers can print from the online journals
· The online images are of equal quality to print
· Online journals are released with less lag time
· Titles are indexed in abstracting services -- and table-of-contents or keyword search results can be delivered via email
· We can obtain PDF copies from other delivery companies in emergency situations
We take archiving seriously, and we are confident that there are multiple repositories in the event of catastrophic failures.
The review and decision process
Starting in January, paper copies of many titles will be removed from the public area and stored in staff areas without being completely processed. In the event of problems with equivalent content or adverse use situations we will be able to document problem titles and supply the paper copies on demand.
At the end of the 2006 we will review those titles requiring paper copies and reduce our paper subscriptions to the minimal number necessary to provide adequate coverage. Reducing paper will allow us to save a small amount of money, better monitor our actual use, and reallocate staff to new online support tasks thereby reducing long-standing backlogs.
In order to notify users of this new procedure we will place the following note in Orbis records:
"Current issues are held in staff areas for special circumstances. Please see staff for access."
The following note will be placed on display shelves: "This journal is available online. See the online journal list for current materials. For this test period, current issues are held in staff areas for special circumstances. Please see staff for access."
Posted by dstern at 04:29 PM | Comments (0)
June 03, 2005
Direct SciFinder links to full text
As of today, there is a direct "Green House" link from citations in SciFinder Scholar (Chem Abstracts plus) to the full text journals. Users no longer need to go through the extra process of selecting the SFX option from the ChemPort interface. Remember, the Green House means more information is available, but not always full text; you may only find links to paper copy holdings information in Orbis or to document delivery request forms.
Posted by dstern at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)
March 31, 2005
Open Access information site
In order to keep researchers up to date on the rapidly changing Open Access journal initiative, we have created an OA description page.
Posted by dstern at 02:07 PM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2005
ACS and open access
The NIH encourages authors whose work it funds to submit their peer-reviewed manuscripts to PubMed Central, the agency's free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature. ACS has decided to take on the task of submission to PubMed Central on behalf of its authors, according to Robert D. Bovenschulte, president of the society's Publications Division. ACS will authorize PubMed Central to make the authors' versions of unedited manuscripts available to the public 12 months after the edited, final articles are published by ACS.
ACS's second policy experiment may have even more far-reaching consequences. ACS authors already had the right to distribute up to 50 free digital reprints by directing interested readers to a unique ACS website address for their final published articles. Now ACS will allow unlimited free access to published articles via these same author-directe online links by eliminating the limit one year after publication.'
For additional info see
http://www.chemistry.org/
Posted by dstern at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2005
Forum on the Future of Scholarly Publishing
Thursday, February 10, 2005
3:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Harkness Auditorium
Sterling Hall of Medicine
333 Cedar Street
Faculty, students and researchers across the campus will be interested in this discussion of the “open access” movement. The purpose of the forum is to discuss the future of research publishing and examine new scholarly publishing models. Open access to peer-reviewed, research articles and the dissemination of published research is an important issue for the entire academic community.
The forum will provide an opportunity to discuss the implications of these new publishing models with representatives from PubMed Central/NIH, the Public Library of Science, Yale faculty and the Yale University Library system.
Additional information (speakers, agenda, etc).
Posted by dstern at 04:34 PM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2004
Open Access: a new model for journals
The library has created a page outlining some of the long-term issues for this newly heralded charging scheme.
The major concern of the community should be maintaining a revenue stream to support the peer review process as the OA reduces the number of organizations that will subsidize the existing publication network.
See the OA and alternative pricing models page for more complete information about this timely topic.
Posted by dstern at 09:50 AM | Comments (0)
Journal Abbreviations
For CURRENTLY RECEIVED PRINT JOURNALS
In the box on the Journal Abbreviation help page, enter the abbreviated journal title for which you'd like to find the full title. Then click on "look it up".
Note 1: This search will only locate currently received journals. Cancelled titles will not be found and must be searched in ORBIS, the Yale Library online catalog.
*******************************
Quick-and-Dirty guide to journal abbreviation searching in the ORBIS online catalog
Option 1:
If the title is fairly unique try entering just the first few letters of the title
AND Quick Limit to "Serials and Journals"
... the system will present a list of titles that begin with the root letters entered.
Option 2: perform a search using the abbreviations and truncation:
phys? and rev? and let?
AND Quick Limit to "Serials and Journals"
Posted by dstern at 09:42 AM | Comments (0)
Online journal list
The easiest way to locate electronic journals is through the
list of electronic journals. This list shows the years of coverage for each title.
Posted by dstern at 09:38 AM | Comments (0)
BioMed Central journals
March 2003
Yale University Library Joins BioMed Central
Yale University Library has reached agreement with BioMed Central to join as an institutional member. BioMed Central (BMC) is an
independent publishing house committed to providing open access to the peer-reviewed biological and medical research it publishes.
As a benefit of membership, the $500 article processing fee is now waived for all Yale-authored articles published in one of
BMC's 60 peer-reviewed journals. Accepted articles become available through the Internet to readers worldwide. In addition,
articles are immediately archived for permanent access in PubMed Central by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.
The Yale University Library pursued membership in BMC as we explore alternative scholarly publishing models in a digital environment.
BioMed Central is premised on a belief that open access to research is vital to rapid and efficient progress in science, and that
subscription-based access to research hinders rather than promotes scientific communication. Yale's membership in BMC has been funded by the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library and the Kline Science Library.
For additional information on BioMed Central and how to publish in a BMC journal, see
http://www.med.yale.edu/library/new/biomedcentral.html
To view all BMC journals, see
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/authors/bmcjournals
For a list of Yale researchers who have already published via BMC, go to
http://www.biomedcentral.com/inst/36055
Posted by dstern at 09:20 AM | Comments (0)
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Yale University is now an institutional member of the Public Library of Science (PLoS),
http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/. PLoS is a non-profit organization committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. PLoS journals are supported with a combination of grant funding, publication fees, and institutional memberships. The pricing model allows PLoS articles to be freely available at time of publication. All articles are immediately archived with the National Library of Medicine as part of PubMed Central.
As an institutional member, Yale authors can publish at a 50% discount ($750) on the $1,500 publication fee. Kline Science and
Cushing/Whitney Medical Libraries jointly purchased an institutional membership for Yale University. Our membership is part of ongoing efforts to promote open access to scientific research and new pricing models for scholarly publishing.
The Public Library of Science journals are:
PLoS Biology, http://www.plosbiology.org
PLoS Medicine, http://www.plosmedicine.org
Posted by dstern at 09:11 AM | Comments (0)