August 3rd, 2010 Brian Herzog
I thought I’d pass this along in case anyone is interested - The American Physical Society is offering online access to their journals free to public libraries.
I haven’t decided if my library will take advantage of the offer, because these journals seem more academic that what our patrons are usually after, and also, it’s in-library access only. But on the plus side, it’s free, and this is a good direction for publishers to be headed.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APS ONLINE JOURNALS AVAILABLE FREE IN U.S. PUBLIC LIBRARIES
Ridge, NY, 28 July 2010: The American Physical Society (APS) announces a new public access initiative that will give readers and researchers in public libraries in the United States full use of all online APS journals, from the most recent articles back to the first issue in 1893, a collection including over 400,000 scientific research papers. APS will provide this access at no cost to participating public libraries, as a contribution to public engagement with the ongoing development of scientific understanding.
APS Publisher Joseph Serene observed that “public libraries have long played a central role in our country’s intellectual life, and we hope that through this initiative they will become an important avenue for the general public to reach our research journals, which until now have been available only through the subscriptions at research institutions that currently cover the significant costs of peer review and online publication.”
Librarians can obtain access by accepting a simple online site license and providing valid IP addresses of public-use computers in their libraries (http://librarians.aps.org/account/public_access_new). The license requires that public library users must be in the library when they read the APS journals or download articles. Initially the program will be offered to U.S. public libraries, but it may include additional countries in the future.
“The Public Library program is entirely consistent with the APS objective to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics,” said Gene Sprouse, APS Editor in Chief. “Our goal is to provide access to
everyone who wants and needs our journals and this shift in policy represents the first of several steps the APS is taking towards that goal.”
–Contact: Amy Halsted, Special Assistant to the Editor in Chief, halsted@aps.org, 631-591-4232
–About the APS: The American Physical Society is the world’s largest professional body of physicists, representing close to 48,000 physicists in academia and industry worldwide. It has offices in Ridge, NY; Washington, DC; and College Park, MD. For more information: www.aps.org.
Tags: access, american physical society, aps physics, database, databases, free, journal, journals, libraries, Library, online, public, resource, Resources See Also
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June 22nd, 2010 Brian Herzog
Last week at a meeting of area reference librarians, the topic of research databases came up - which ones we like, which we wish patrons would use more, etc.
One librarian remarked that her favorite database is one of the most expensive, but doesn’t get used much so she’s considering cutting it. She happened to mention the price they’re paying, which got everyone’s attention.
That particular database vendor bases their pricing on population. For her town of 32,000, they’re paying over $7,000 for that database. My town is exactly the same size, but we pay only $4,400 - and another town, of 25,000, pays over $5,000. What?
Then we started relating other database pricing anecdotes:
- A sales rep told one librarian a database cost $4,000. When the librarian said she couldn’t even come close to that, the sales rep asked, “well, what can you afford?” - she said $1,500, and the rep made the deal for that price
- One vendor said they don’t like losing customers, so when I called to cancel a database, they gave it to me for free provided I kept access to the others I had from them
- Another vendor gives volume discounts, so when I called to cancel two of the three databases we got from them, he said buying just the one database (without the volume discount) would be more expensive than getting all three
I hate this. Don’t get me wrong - I like the database sales reps I work with - I just don’t understand the business model behind databases. And the difference between charging a library $4,000 for something instead of $1,500 seems like price gouging.
It’s great that reps are able to work with small-budget libraries, but it would be so much easier to have fixed, posted prices, rather than everyone paying different rates (isn’t that one of the things that got the health care industry in trouble?).
All the librarians at the meeting agreed to compare notes and prices, so we can try to save money the next time we renew our contracts. I hate to haggle and negotiate for prices, but now I feel like it would be fiscally irresponsible of me not to - and never accept the first quote. Since what we pay is public record anyway, maybe libraries should post their database contracts in a central place, so we can all get better deals.
(And just as a funny aside: while I was looking for a photo to accompany this post, this clever one cracked me up. Ah, sales - it’s why I left the business world for librarianship.)
Tags: access, contract, contracts, database, databases, libraries, Library, online, public, purchase, purchasing, Resources, subscription See Also
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June 8th, 2010 Brian Herzog
Last week, my Director gave me a letter she received from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) with good news - the database access they provide through Gale and Proquest now offer geolocation authentication for any computer in Massachusetts.
Good for patrons:
- Just click a link on the library’s website to get into the database - whether the patron is in the library or at home (within Massachusetts), they get right into the database without having to also enter their library card barcode or anything else
- If they’re traveling outside of Massachusetts, they can still access the database using the same link, because they’ll be prompted to enter their card number
- Patrons from other states who are traveling in Massachusetts can access all of our databases without having to be in the library - any internet connection within the state will do
Good for librarians:
- We just need to put a single link on our website that works for both in-library and at-home access - much easier to manage
- Each link includes a library identifier, so we still get usage stats on anyone using the links on our website
- The MBLC provides a list of all the links for each library (ours look like this), so we just need to copy/paste them onto our website and it works
MA libraries have until Oct. 31, 2010 to get the new links posted, because that’s when the old links stop working. If you need help, or didn’t get a letter like this, contact Marlene Heroux and the MBLC. And libraries outside of MA, contact Gale and Proquest to see how to get this to happen for you, too. They can do it, so ask for it.
Way to go, MBLC!
Tags: access, authentication, database, databases, geoauthentication, geolocation, libraries, Library, massachusetts board of library commissioners, mblc, public, remote See Also
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November 12th, 2009 Brian Herzog
In honor of Veterans Day, Ancestry.com is offering free access to all of its US Military resources through Friday, Nov. 13th.
An AP story also says that Ancestry has added some new resources, including
…more than 600 Navy cruise books…[which] include the names and photos of those who served on ships…one book - a 1946 edition for the U.S.S. Pennsylvania - includes a photo of TV legend Johnny Carson.
Great idea, Ancestry - thank you. And if I may suggest another great idea: offer libraries remote access at an affordable price.
via LibraryStuff
Tags: access, ancestry, ancestry.com, database, free, genealogy, libraries, Library, military, online, public, remote, research See Also
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November 6th, 2008 Brian Herzog
In the last few weeks, I’ve seen a lot of announcements concerning video content being added to online resources. Both InfoTrac and NewsBank have recently made email announcements about content they’ve each added to their databases.
InfoTrac added many full-text resources to the General and Academic OneFiles, some of which include video segments. NewsBank’s announcement was more thorough - here’s an excerpt from the email:
In response to the rising demand in libraries, NewsBank is adding video news content to our online news resources-at no additional charge to our customers. The complete package from respected media distributor Voxant includes the following sources: The Associated Press, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, local affiliates of ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox, as well as coverage from Canadian Broadcasting, Agence France Press and more. Your institution will have access to video clips from all or a select group of these sources, depending on your subscription.
Beginning on Monday, October 20, the videos clips will be added to NewsBank resources. Users will be able to:
- Play news videos within the NewsBank interface, in the same space used to display text articles
- Select specific videos from a comprehensive results lists that also includes NewsBank articles, or restrict their search to “video only”
- Access recent and archived news videos at your institution or remotely
- Email links of specific videos to friends, or embed them in a presentation
I find it curious that they say this is in response to demand from libraries. From the few tests I did, most of this newly added video content is already available free online, so I’m not sure where this demand was coming from (or why the vendors choose to listen to this particular demand instead of other things libraries have been demanding).
If a patron wants to watch a news show online, I can’t see myself showing them how to navigate the library website to find the right database, log in with their library card, navigate the database for the right title, and then find the episode. It is just easier for me and the patron to use the station’s own website or YouTube as a resource.
And speaking of YouTube, Library Stuff linked to a YouTube announcement on c|net today: “YouTube will begin offering feature films produced by at least one of the biggest Hollywood movie studios possibly as early as next month.” Combine that with Hulu.com and other websites, and that’s a lot of available video content.
For the database vendors though, I would prefer they concentrating on making their resources more user-friendly and useful by “uniquing” them, instead of providing content that is already available from other sources.
Tags: content, database, databases, infotrac, libraries, Library, news, newsbank, online, public, Resources, too much joy, video, youtube See Also
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