Hello everyone
How do you feel about "e-publications ahead of print", and how do you deal with them?
In our library, when a customer requests an "e-publication ahead of print" that we are not able to immediately access, we simply process it like any other request but in the knowledge that we may not find a library who can supply it. Sometimes the British Library can supply them, but sometimes not (I'm not sure why this is). In those cases where we can find no library to supply the article I will contact the library customer and tell them they have 3 remaining options:
a) wait until the article appears in print and then submit another request, at which point the British Library should be able to supply it. Unfortunately there is no way of knowing how long this will take, it could be a year or two.
b) purchase the article themselves from the publishers website. (Would/do any libraries consider purchasing an article directly from the publisher? Typical costs seem to be round 20-30 US Dollars, which works out at about double the cost of a standard British Library article request - spending an extra £10 to avoid a lengthy wait might be good value in some cases)
c) contact the authors of the article and see if they would be willing to share their research with you.
In such cases it seems to me that the library is not fit for purpose. If libraries (especially specialist/academic libraries) are not able to supply (epub) research articles that are being quoted at conferences/in the press and already referenced in other research articles, how will this affect our reputation with our customers?
Does anybody think that the publishers are using these "e-publications ahead of print" to deliberately scupper the inter-library supply of articles?
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts!
Kind regards
Mathew Stone
Assistant Librarian | Health Library & Information Service | Fieldhouse Education Centre, BRI
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
T: 01274 36 4122
F: 4704
http://www.bradfordhospitals.nhs.uk
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