One of our postgraduate students found a citation in an A&I database.
The citation was for a "meeting abstract" published in a journal to
which we subscribe online. When he examined the contents page of the
issue in question he found that the page containing the "meeting
abstract" was missing. In fact over 40 pages are missing from the
electronic version of this issue alone.
Our subscription to this journal was cancelled several years before we
moved to e-only and it is one of the titles in a bundled package. Our
readers are now able to access contents which they would not have been
able to access had we not opted for this big deal -- but only if the
contents are actually there!
I contacted the help desk of the publisher and received back a Word
document which was "currently not available online" but because "the
Issue Manager had a copy of the abstract stored locally" -- whatever
that means. I forwarded the document to the student.
The electronic version of the contents page only lists what is available
online. There is no explanation why there is a gap of over 40 pages in
this issue and what contents appeared in the print version but are not
included in the online version.
Contents pages of the print version are definitely missing from the
online version! The author index is included but does not tell us what
is on these missing pages.
Mieko
On Thu, 11 Mar 2004, John Sack wrote:
> I am looking for anecdotes from librarians and publishers that
> illustrate the subtle meaning of this shift to an electronic
> 'journal of record'. Anecdotes might include situations where
> librarians (or patrons) have referred to an electronic journal
> for something, but have had to return to the paper journal in
> the end because what they wanted was not to be found or was not
> usable online.
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Mieko Yamaguchi [log in to unmask]
Technical Services Manager/System Coordinator +44 (0)1248 382970
Main Library, University of Wales Bangor, UK +44 (0)1248 382979 (Fax)
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