Physics News
David Stern
INSPEC Backfile Now Available
The Inspec Archive: Electronic Access to Science Abstracts Journals 1898-1968 is now available. The pricing options for the Inspec Archive are: Annual subscription via a Site Licence; Pay-as-you-go online access; or Perpetual or on-going access via a one-time payment. Pay as you go pricing must be sought through the vendors providing access this way (Dialog & STN).
It is possible that the Inspec vendors will not have the database ready until late 2004 or early 2005. If you choose to access through an Inspec vendor, you can start on Inspec's platform (September 1 2004), and move to the vendor of your choice at anytime. If you are interested in leasing the data, they will add an additional fee to your existing Inspec site license fee (which will carry annual increases consistent with Inspec's percent increase). For additional information contact Inspec at http://www.iee.org/Inspec
AIP Announces New AIP Conference Proceedings 2005 subscription Options
The AIP Conference Proceedings are now available as an online-only subscription. This option offers a significant discount off the annual price of a print standing order, and
includes access to all proceedings published since January 2000. Online access is also available to print Standing Order customers at no charge (contact AIP at subs@aip.org to
register), but libraries may now subscribe to the online version without having to purchase the printed volumes.
Springer Advisory Board
The newly reconstituted Springer has appointed a new Library Advisory Board. The first meeting is scheduled for November 14-16 in New Orleans. Suzanne Fedunok, at suzanne.fedunok@nyu.edu, from NYU's Bobst Library will be there as our PAM liaison. Agenda items include: Archiving, Open Access, Pricing models, Usage data, and some breakout sessions. The program distributed to the board asks lots of questions under each heading. The results of the meeting are to be in the form of Proposals and Resolutions. Other board members are: Elizabeth Landesman (NIH), Beverlee French (California Digital Library), Dana Roth (Cal Tech), David Stern (Yale), Deborah Sibley (Thomas Jefferson University), James Mouw (U Chicago), John Ingram(U Florida), John Saylor (Cornell), Karen Butter (UCSF), Ladd Brown (U Vermont), Linda Rosenstein (U Penn), Mark Funk (Cornell Med), Carol Hoover (LANL), Susan Starr (UCSD), and Warren Holder (U Toronto).
Backfiles Can Be Bliss....
Sara Tompson, sarat@usc.edu, returning PAM member and Science & Engineering Team Leader, Information Services Division, University of Southern California reports the following experience with electronic journal backfiles:
At USC our Science and Engineering Team was able to use some funds at the end of our fiscal year (June) to purchase the Physics backfiles from Elsevier/Science Direct. Access to these titles made our physics faculty, particularly the string theorists, extraordinarily pleased, more than we anticipated. One professor even went "on record" with the USC Chronicle re how important these older physics titles are to comprehensive research.
We had hoped to cancel some little used and lower impact factor mathematics titles from Elsevier, in order to free up funds to purchase the Math backfiles, but this was not acceptable to the overwhelming majority of math faculty and graduate students. We are planning for these backfiles further down the road.
The differences between disciplines regarding current and backfiles journals is fascinating, and one cannot infer how department X will respond from department Y's response. Nevertheless, it is fascinating and fun to be back serving physicists, plus serving all of the sciences and engineering faculty, students and staff in my new academic position.
david.e.stern@yale.edu
