PAMnet News Brian Quigley Nicholson Baker http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0104&L=pamnet#80 Also, check out the two book reviews forwarded to the list: http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/04/05/fp20s1-csm.shtml Distribution of EI's Compendex http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0105&L=pamnet#63 Replacing Print With Online The UNM JSTOR vs. Print story: The Vassar Success story: Speed of Publication http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0104&L=pamnet#73 INSPEC Axiom Problems http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0106&L=pamnet#40 Other interesting threads from the past quarter can be found in the PAMnet Discussion Archive at http://listserv.nd.edu/archives/pamnet.html
bquigley@library.berkeley.edu
Oh, I didn't even want to touch this one, let alone start with it, but here goes anyway. David Stern sparked intense discussion when he posted the Merle Rubin review of Nicholson Baker's new book "Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper." In the book, Baker claims that many libraries have wantonly and unnecessarily destroyed their newspapers and brittle books in the process of microfilming them for preservation. He challenges the word "preservation" for this process, citing the loss of original format and content. How do we librarians react to such accusations? Well, some librarians agree with Baker, while others do not - leading to some heated discussion. I expect we'll witness many more debates on this issue in the years to come. To view this discussion, visit:
http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWfeatdisplay.cgi?20010426016R
Elsevier has decided to no longer distribute Ei Compendex through IOP Axiom come March 31, 2002 - quite an unfortunate turn of events for current subscribers as well as potential subscribers who wanted to search both Compendex and INSPEC on the IOP Axiom interface. In alerting the list to this decision, Bob Michaelson discussed his ongoing problems with the EV2 interface and his suspicion that Compendex may eventually be removed from all of Elsevier's competitors. Elsevier posted a reply of "clarification" that hardly seemed to satisfy. Although they mention the many options still available, including "via resellers such as IOP (until March 2002), SP, OVID, STN, ScienceDirect, and DIALOG", it leads me to wonder: For how long? Read the discussion at the following threads:
http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0105&L=pamnet#64
http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0105&L=pamnet#19
Martha Tucker inspired two interesting threads when she posted a report from the Library Journal Academic Newswire on the UNM experiment in discarding print math journals duplicated in JSTOR. The first thread discussed the failure of this experiment, which ended when UNM reacquired its print math journals. The second thread began with Sarah Stevens-Rayburn's request for success stories, inspiring Flora Grabowska to post on the encouraging success at Vassar College. But other PAMnetters chipped in with their concerns regarding perpetual access: if you go online only, how do you insure access to back issues if you unsubscribe? Clearly, this is an issue that must be addressed in the license agreements we sign. Two possible solutions were mentioned: (1) maintaining access to back issues through an annual access fee and (2) receiving back issues on CD-ROM for local loading. The first solution raises certain concerns: what happens if the publisher goes under, or if the institution can no longer pay the annual access fee? But the second solution raises concerns as well, mainly concerning technological obsolescence, migration and maintenance. Definitely two threads worth checking out.
http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0105&L=pamnet#47
http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0105&L=pamnet#30
Well, it seems preprint servers, electronic journals and electronic peer review really are having an effect on the speed of publication. Articles peer reviewed and published in just over a day! Numerous preprints and articles published before the original paper they cite! As Greg Youngen states, "By now, this shouldn't be surprising," but somehow it still is. Read all about it at:
In general, June seemed to be a slow month. I wonder if it had to do with vacations and conferences . . . Anyway, Pat Sulouff did post an interesting question on whether "anyone else [was] having problems with INSPEC via Axiom". It seems she has encountered problems with slow response times, nonworking indexes and inconsistent controlled vocabulary searches. In a follow-up post, she summarized the responses she received on other problems. Quoting the follow-up, "Axiom's INSPEC is a terrific database when it is functioning properly. I'm hoping IOP will be able to resolve the problems soon". You view the post and follow-up summary at:
http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0106&L=pamnet#39
