If you subscribe to MEDLIB-L delete now. Abundance of messages again
dictates a splitting of the summary. First part includes information
resources. Second part more general discussions.
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MEDLIB-L selection March 17-24, 2001
Contents:
9. Websites and online catalogsdiscussion [on how hard it is to find
libraries' web catalogues]
10. Summary: Updating web pages
11. ! PC reservation and computer booking software, summary [long]
12. Nature Publications [the publisher librarians currently love to hate]
13. Opinions[sought] on this neonatal abstracting WEB page
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Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 16:48:52 -0700
From: Cathy Wolfson <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Websites and online catalogs--discussion
Colleagues:
I would like to raise an issue which has bothered me a while but which
really came to a head yesterday.
Yesterday on behalf of a colleague in a much smaller library, I went into
FirstSearch to find out who has attached their holdings symbol to a
particular journal. Then I visited the websites of those libraries to
determine if the libraries actually own the volume and issue needed.
I should say I TRIED to visit the websites and search their online
catalogs. By the end of my searching, I was thoroughly exasperated,
frazzled, and exhausted. Here's why.
There were 23 libraries altogether. I managed to find the online catalogs
of 20 out of the 23. 2 don't offer their online catalog outside of their
own campus and 1 has no web presence whatsoever. Sheesh, in this day and
age? I'm not talking developing countries here, folks. All libraries
were in either the U.S. or the U.K. and the 3 in the U.K weren't the
guilty parties.
I went into Google and typed in each library's name as it appeared on the
FirstSearch record. For some libraries I could actually go straight to the
libraries' websites.
For the majority I had to visit university home page first. Many of those
pages did not put libraries at the top level. Instead you had to guess
which division the library would be in, and no two were identical. I'm
proud that this university does have Libraries on the top page.
So, those of you who work at universities where links to libraries don't
appear on the top page...lobby again, ok? I'm assuming you already have.
Once I found where the libraries were on the universities' pages, the next
guessing game began. Gee, do I want the Smith Library, the Jones Library,
or the Wilson Library? (I'm making these names up.) Many libraries don't
include the type of library in their name, at least, not on the university
website. If you are not a member of that university community, chances
are you won't know the name of the library you want.
Once I found the right library, then I had the challenge of finding its
online catalog. Some sites said online catalog or library catalog or
words like that. THAT'S GOOD. Others, though, offered various names of
catalogs. One library vendor name appeared twice. Fortunately for me, I
recognized that name. Another library offers a play on the word cat.
Cute but still relatively easy to find. For a librarian, that is.
However, some just offered various cutsey names.
With one library I had to telnet to the catalog. If there was a web
version, it wasn't obvious to me how to get to it.
The most problematic was a university which I won't identify but which is
somewhere in the northern U.S. From the library's home page you get a
link to their library catalog, YOU THINK. You click on it and are taken
to a page which offers you a pop-up menu of every library catalog in the
entire state. I looked alphabetically for the library in question. It
wasn't where I expected it to be (it's one of the named-after-people
libraries). It's listed under the University of -----, -------- Library
instead. It took me several tries to figure this out and finally get into
the catalog.
The library in which I work is also guilty of the cute name for the online
catalog. I have just sent a long overdue message to inhouse colleagues
suggesting that we add something by the catalog's name so peo far, several
people have spoken up and have very quickly finished.
Who are your users? Are there restrictions as to who can use your
computers, and are there people who try to do end-runs around these
restrictions?
If so, do the end-runners perhaps have legitimate needs? If that's a
yes, can they be met by some other facility? Are user restrictions
realistic or arbitrary?
What is the scope of the problem? Are users regularly finding no
computers available? Once a day? Once a week? Or did this happen one
time and does someone want to make a federal case out of it?
What sorts of uses do you want to encourage on your computers, and what
do you want to discourage?
What uses are your patrons making of the computers? Have they asked you
for access to programs, email, databases, whatever, and are you for access
to programs, email, databases, whatever, and are you providing it or are
there financial or institutional barriers?
Is there any possibility that you need to perform a needs assessment?
Institution 10. We use WinU for security and it has a time limit
feature, but we only use it for the OPAC, which are supposed to be short
lookups and don't require the students to sign up for a computer. Our
research computers have a one hour limit, 1/2 hour when people are
waiting.
When they sign up, they note the time in on the sign in sheet and then
note the time out when they sign out and get their ID back.
We don't enforce time limits anymore. Before we were the only
Web-capable center on campus and so we were used constantly. Now there are
Other labs, so we aren't as heavily used and don't feel the need to
enforce the limits.
The time limit is change if there is a waiting line. It was posted on
the mouse pads, but we haven't had a waiting line in a year.
To keep track of who was waiting to use the PC, users used to leave their
ID or sign up on a sticky note that was stuck on the sign-in page.
Patrons who refused to leave the PC were told that if they will not
leave voluntarily we will turn off the power. If that doesn't work we
would call campus police.
Institution 11. My PC's are available to both the staff, patients
and their families. Patient's families sending e-mail and updating web
sites is probably the number one use of computers in my small
rehabilitation hospital library. I have 3 public-use PC workstations.
User have unlimited access until A 4th user appears. I then ask the 4th
party if he is waiting for a PC and announce that to the other 3.
Usually, someone will speak up and state that they are nearly finished.
If no one does, I will speak to the person who has been at a work station
the longest and ask him to conclude his time. I have a written policy
posted that states that a user has ten minutes to conclude a transaction
after someone else asks for the computer. Ten minutes is probably too
long to make the new user wait, but is plenty long enough for someone to
conclude an e-mail or save a document or search results. Written policy
also states that a therapist working with a patient takes priority over
all others. No one ever challenges this as everyone knows that the
patients are first priority in everything we do. Recreation specialists
often bring patients to the library to introduce them to using the
computer as a leisure activity. Patients are on tight schedule during
rehabilitation.
Institution 12.. We are going to remove chat and email on specified pcs
and we think this will make a difference in usage. If it makes a
significant difference we will then remove chat and email on all pcs.
Students have computer labs on campus for both of these activities and
don't have to rely on the library. The new policy will be posted in plain
view of all pcs - announcements will go out to campus newspaper and other
channels of information If there's a line, we make an announcement once
every hour or so that if students have been on more than 45 minutes they
need to consider letting others have a turn. If there's no line, there's
no announcement.
URLs of some companies which provide PC reservation/computer booking
software:
http://www.pharos.com/products/signup_info.asp
http://www.vasinc.com/ocs/OCS.htm
http://www.cybraryn.com/products/resrvdsk.htm
http://www.pc-cop/whatis.htm
http://www.sri.bc.ca/CompBooking.htm
http://www.bardon.com/winu.htm
Also, the archives of LibNT-L and Web4Lib-L are useful to search:
http://listserv.utk.edu/archives/libnt-l.html
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Web4Lib/archive
Martha E. Stone, M. S., AHIP
Coordinator for Reference Services
Treadwell Library
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, MA 02114
tel: 617-724-2780; fax: 617-726-6784
[log in to unmask]
http://www.mgh.harvard.edu/library
==================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 22:41:21 -0500
From: D.C. Rein <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Nature Publications
Hmmm--this news release below by Nature is interesting: I'm a
personal subscriber to Nature and have been ever since it went online.
I am totally unaware of any "market research". No one polled me nor did I
ever remember seeing it when I accessed the web site. From my former
science cohorts, I'm told that the "word in the labs" is that Nature wants
to focus only on the individual subscriber as their "bread and butter" (to
quote one) and that they expect our individual rates to climb sky-high
very soon.
I do use my personal electronic copy mostly to keep up on the news--that's
the only portion of the electronic copy I actually use. I DO use my
library for access to back issues for "archival research" as they call it.
Personally, when my current personal subscription runs out, I will
not re-new--I'm forced to purchase the print along with the
electronic access--never wanted both anyway. Every year I donate the
printed copy to my local high school. Now with them squeezing
libraries as well as me as an individual subscriber, I do believe I
will vote with my credit card.
diane
---------------------------- LJ Academic Newswire (Mar.1, 2001)
LIBRARY COMMUNITY'S REACTION TO SITE LICENSE TAKES NATURE BY SURPRISE
...
NATURE Marketing Director Della Sar told the LJ ACADEMIC
NEWSWIRE that the "unexpected reaction" of the library
community seemed to defy market research done by the
publisher. "During 1999 and 2000 we carried out extensive
market research amongst our 48,000-plus personal
subscribers," says Sar. "The response from the subscribers
was, that [since] all of them have online access to all
content at no additional charge, and certainly well ahead
of receipt of their paper copies in most cases, they
primarily use their library copies for archival research.
In fact there was almost no personal subscriber who said
they used the library copy for the news section." Asked if
this unexpected reaction might cause the publisher to amend
its current embargo policy, Sar said no. "We are naturally
constantly discussing our license terms," she
noted, "but...have no immediate plans [to amend the
policy]. Sar noted that the current model was tailored to
meet library needs by offering access, albeit restricted by
the embargoes, 24 hours seven days a week, campus-wide.
--
Diane C. Rein, Ph.D.
BioComm Consultants
mailto:[log in to unmask]
Voice: (513) 923-2441
Fax: (513) 923-1371
-------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 08:48:09 -0500
From: Jonathan M. Lord <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Nature Publications
Skyrocketing prices for online access to Nature certainly
does seem to be the trend. Last year Nature offered full
online access free with a institutional print subscription.
Then in October, we were told a site license for online
access to partial content would cost $1200.00. After
January 1, 2001 the price shot up 525% to $7500.00. And the
New York office of Nature tells me this week that a whole
new pricing scheme will be introduced on April 1st.
Incidentially, the same person in the New York office,
Lenore Leon, told me that there are certain "technological"
problems they need to work out in order to provide full
access to online content for institutional subscribers.
She assured me that Nature does not wish to delay access
to any part of its content, and that as soon as the
technology enables them to do so, they will be offering
full access to its institutional subscribers. She insisted
that the technology Nature uses to allow individual
subscribers to full online content is "very different" from
the technology used for institutional subscribers, hence
the 90 delay for certain parts of the journal. When I
tried to point out that there really was no difference
between an individual subscriber accessing online content,
and an institutional subscriber accessing the same content,
she told me that there were "very complex technological
issues involved" (the implication being that they were too
technical for a mere librarian to understand) with this and
that Nature hoped to have them resolved soon. To quote
Dave Barry "I'm not making this up."
I did pinch myself after I hung up the phone to make sure I
wasn't dreaming.
JL
Jonathan Lord /Asst Director for Collection Development
Univ of Virginia Health Sciences Library
P.O. Box 800722 / Charlottesville, VA 22908-0722
804-924-0059 / FAX: 804-243-5873
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
-------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 16:39:42 -0500
From: Jonathan M. Lord <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Nature Publications
To follow up, after I wrote this to the list, I got a call
from someone else in the New York office of Nature and she
assured me that this information is totally inaccurate.
JLJonathan Lord /Asst Director for Collection Development
Univ of Virginia Health Sciences Library
P.O. Box 800722 / Charlottesville, VA 22908-0722
804-924-0059 / FAX: 804-243-5873
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
==================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 16:10:15 -0500
From: "King, Sam" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Opinions on this neonatal abstracting WEB page
Greetings - One of my clinicians has asked about the attached WEB site on
NICU-NET which offers downloads of neonatal journal abstracts for persons
"too busy to regularly visit the library". This is a personal site, which
raises issues. Because it appears to be creating interest, I would be
interested in any opinions.
http://www.acenet.com.au/~callande/journals.html
Thanks
Sam King
Director, Library and Multimedia Services
Elliot Hospital
Manchester, NH
==================================================================
compiled on her birthday by Silvia Cantaluppi Patrick
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