Physics Roundtable Thurston Miller The session began with introductions of everyone in the room. The outline was to have several people each speak for five minutes. Following the individual presentations would be a discussion on topics raised during the presentations or on other issues. Tony O'Rourke (IOP Publishing): IoPP is digitizing their backfiles in XML (so that it will be full-text searchable, and linkable) back to 1991, and eventually will be completely digitized back to 1874. The first portion will be rolled out in 6 months. Their price increase for 2002 will be 5.8%. They are increasing their links -- have just signed a linking agreement for Web of Science. They have opened a new editorial office at the Lebedev Institute (Russia). Axiom's Derwent subscription cost has been reduced by 40%; although EI said it would drop Compendex from Axiom - IoPP and EI are still negotiating. Tim Ingoldsby (AIP) spoke of their new usage statistics. 256 institutions registered in the first 1.5 weeks. Phase 1 data includes 7 APS and 10 AIP journals -- includes data on table of contents views, abstract views, searches, and articles downloaded. Browsing leads searching by 2.2:1. They have 20 million hits, and 600,000 article downloads, per month. The will soon have a new search engine, and offer author searching. They have new LinkSmith linking, with CrossRef outbound links, links to ChemPort, etc. Bob Kelly (AIP): PROLA is completed back to 1893; it is mirrored at Cornell and soon at LC. (Bob yielded his remaining time to the next speaker.) Rich Hunt (INSPEC) compared INSPEC versus Science Citation Index for physics searching. He demonstrated advantages to both databases but showed that searching INSPEC provides a more comprehensive search of the Physics literature. Diane Fortner: E-books and E-series. There are digitized books, and books "born digital". In the 21st century, electronic reference books will be reconceptualized. Many e-book companies started with fiction but fiction is the most resistant to reconceptualizing. The true test of a successful e-book is "bed, beach, bathroom". Currently you can have up to 200 titles on one machine -- this is a personal library, but you can't leave it to your grandchildren! (Restrictions on what you are allowed to do with the titles you have.) E-book readers have an "intellectual property control" role for which standards are still under development. This is still a small consumer market; fewer than 50,000 dedicated e-reading devices have been sold in the U.S. In the academic world, the most logical candidates for e-books are: Textbooks, reference books, what we have called "handbooks". The Good/Why?: Problems/Concerns: Bob Michaelson:
thurston.d.miller.115@nd.edu
- assured content (cover-to-cover, accurate, and complete).
- assured archiving and fixity of content cost of access
- cost of local hardware, wiring, etc. -- probably much less of an issue now than 5 years ago
- free access to older materials (such as provided on a number of HighWire titles such as PNAS)
- adequate and standardized user statistics (so they may be directly compared)
- the free market versus the protectionism inherent in ScienceDirect, IDEAL, and other limited-cancellation plans.
Molly White: Publicizing web content: What should be publicized? All paid subscriptions and any free site that contains relevant scholarly material. The most important way is by cataloging the sites in one's Online Catalog. Another way is to create e-resource web pages. Of course, maintaining the links is very labor intensive because publishers may change the coverage, or buy or sell titles. Aggregators also present a challenge because their content is always in a state of flux. Other ways to publicize web content include: email directly to users, a "What's New" link on a website, or signage in the library where the print equivalent is located. Molly raised the issue of branding as an important issue. Publishers need to help publicize the fact that the Library pays for access to these titles via subscriptions. A big problem is the lack of understanding by library patrons that library resources are not 'free on the internet'. We need splash screens or simple text messages that identify the subscribing library. If you feel strongly ask your PAM liaisons to take up the issue with their respective publishers.
The session ended with a lively discussion about audience concerns of migrating content to the web. Bob Noel started the discussion and unfortunately the notes for this discussion are missing.
