Hi,
We are very keen at my institution to gain electronic access to any of our
subscriptions that are available electronically either as online only or as
print with free online etc.. This is not an easy task, when the information
on some publishers web sites is either way out of date or doesn't contain
the information we need in order to gain access to the e-version of a
particular journal or in some cases even to know whether our current
subscriptions gives us the rights to access the e-version. I am still
waiting on a reply from SLACK Incorporated sent at the end of September as
to whether we can gain access to the e-versions of some of their journals to
which we have a current subscription and to enquire about their subscription
options for 2005. In this case the publisher is living up to its name!
We are very unhappy when the only access we have to the electronic version
is through a username and password. Now one username and password per
journal is just about tolerable. However, I've just uncovered a journal we
subscribe to, Physiotherapy Research International, which requires a
different password for each volume! In order to find the password you have
to go to the relevant print issue and look on the the bottom of the first
page. Does this publisher expect our users to take the complete set of the
printed journal to their desktop when trying to access these titles? This
does seem to defeat the object of having an electronic version of the
journal at all! We normally handle usernames and passwords by putting them
on a secure page where only our users are able to access them - how are we
expected to handle a username and password for each volume on our system. If
such obstacles are going to be put in the way of our users and ourselves
then the electronic versions of such journals just won't be used.
I've tried to speak to the publisher, Whurr Publishers Ltd, in order to ask
why such a requirement exists in the first place. Unfortunately the person I
needed to speak to wasn't available, so I await their call. Surely one can
have a single password to access the whole journal online? Of course, access
via IP would be much better.
Do any other members of this list have any similar cases where the
electronic version of a journal has been made almost inaccessible to its
users?
Cheers
Lesley
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Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant,
Learning and Information Services,
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB UK
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e-mail: [log in to unmask]
phone: 01707 284662 fax: 01707 284666
web: http://www.herts.ac.uk/lis/subjects/natsci/ejournal/
list owner: [log in to unmask]
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