This message is a response to Linda's original enquiry, and the subsequent
comments from Chris Rusbridge and Sean Dunne.  Apologies for the
consequent length.

First, commenting on Linda's message:

Linda Humphreys wrote:
> 
> Ingenta journals provides us with 'free' access to the full text of 
> Blackwell Science titles (or at least those to which the Library 
> subscribes) as a result of the Pilot Site Licence Initiative (PSLI).
> Because of this, we can use the full text links from the ISI citation 
> indexes to obtain  the full text of articles from these 
> titles without a charge to the end-user.  I understand that the PSLI 
> deal for Blackwell Science journals comes to an end at the end of 
> this month: presumably we will cease to have 'free' access to these 
> titles via Ingenta and the BIDS ISI Data Service from January 1999?

No, we have confirmed with Blackwell Science that you will continue to
have access to the Blackwell Science journals covering the period of the
PSLI (ie 1996-98).
 
In addition, Blackwell Publishers say on their web site:

"The Pilot Site Licence Scheme comes to an end at the end of December
1998, however Blackwell Publishers Journals will continue to be available
electronically to institional subscribers of the paper version in the UK
in 1999 via ingentaJournals, which is free to UK libraries,..."

They have also confirmed that PSLI participants will in any case continue
to have access to 1996-98 material.

Finally, for Academic Press, free access is granted to all participating
institutions until the end of 1999.

> Supposing that we sign up with NESLI for access to Blackwell Science 
> titles.  Will users of the BIDS ISI Data Service who find links to 
> Blackwell Science titles be advised of the fact that we have free 
> access via NESLI (or even better, find a link), or will our users 
> be advised that they have to pay the usual Ingenta fee for delivery 
> of the document, unaware that it is available 'free' from an 
> alternative source?

If you sign up with NESLI for access to Blackwell Science titles, you will
have a choice of access routes.  Under the deal, Blackwell Science will be
providing us with access information, so you will be able to continue to
access 1999 material via ingentaJournals, and via the ISI service (as well
as through the the NESLI site).

> What of the situation when we have to access the ISI databases via 
> Web of Science?  I understand that ISI are negotiating with 
> publishers to provide links to full text.   Will the 
> standard subscription cost for ISI allow us to exploit all their full 
> text links irrespective of Library subscriptions (cf NISS Biomed 
> Service)?  

No, the deal for Web of Science will almost certainly only be for access
to the bibiographic databases.  Access to full text will be subject to
separate licensing arrangements.

> Will our NESLI arrangements have any bearing on what full text links
> we can follow in ISI databases?

Once the issue of who is to run Web of Science has been settled (this
won't be before the middle of next year), then we will certainly be
interested in linking it to our full text material, whether or not we are
the chosen site for Web of Science.  As Sean has said, the NESLI managing
agent also plans to talk to ISI about this.

> Or will we have to pay twice - i.e. ISI and NESLI - in order to
> exploit full text links from the ISI databases in addition to
> providing direct access to e-journal titles?

No, as Sean has pointed out, you certainly won't be required to pay twice.

> If Web of Science is hosted by BIDS, will Ingenta journals still have
> a role to play in linking from ISI databases to full text?

As stated above, we would very much hope so, though this will require some
development work on the Web of Science product.  BIDS/ingenta will be keen
to co-operate in any such development.

As for Chris's comments:

On Wed, 16 Dec 1998, Mr C A Rusbridge wrote:

> The link between BIDS ISI and JournalsOnline full text journals provided
> under the Pilot Site Licence Initiative, while very useful within its
> limits, was always a closed, proprietary system. As such it was always
> vulnerable to the kinds of changes which inexorably come along, such as
> the move from PLSI to NESLI, and eventually the move from the current
> implementation of ISI to the Web of Science. It also ignores other
> collections of full text journals which do not conveniently happen to be
> hosted by BIDS.

ingentaJournals(JournalsOnline) has always allowed material to be linked
that is not hosted by us.  For example, the original AP collection was
made available via a link to the IDEAL server, and we will be linking to
OUP's server in the New Year.

> I can't answer the questions you have about the evolution of this closed,
> proprietary system within BIDS or ingenta; I hope they will speak for
> themselves.

Chris, this is a little bit unfair on JournalsOnline which, after all, was
founded on work carried out under the e-Lib InfoBike project.  It was
created when there weren't any alternatives, and was a genuine attempt to
deal with the danger of there being four different sites/interfaces for
the four publishers that formed the PSLI consortium.  We did manage to
reduce this to two (IoP and JournalsOnline).

As for NESLI, as they have publicly admitted, getting publishers to agree
to an electronic-only deal has been very difficult, and as a result NESLI
has now relaxed the electronic-only condition.

What we have been doing with BIDS/JournalsOnline/ingentaJournals is to
follow a pragmatic route which enables people to access material that is
available now through a simple, single front end, with the added benefit
of direct linking from bibliographic databases.  It has proved to be
popular, with 45,000 accesses last month for example.

> However, CEI is now pursuing the idea of the Distributed National
> Electronic Resource (DNER). This would be open and standards-based as much
> as possible. It would support "joined-up retrieval" where items of
> interest could be identified through searching one or more bibliographic
> databases, and then full text versions of these items could be located and
> retrieved from a wide variety of sources. If we had such a system,
> effective use of the digital library would be much closer.
>
> It would allow not only searching in ISI and retrieving from NESLI, but
> also perhaps searching in PCI and retrieving from archives of digitised
> resources such as JSTOR.

As you say "if we had such a system" this would be an extremely attractive
way forward, and is certainly worth striving for.  The ingentaJournals
system is designed to be flexible and to allow for a number of different
modes of operation, including links to other retrieval mechanisms, and
links to other delivery services, including those operated by publishers,
and indeed services just as JSTOR.

> Full implementation of the DNER is not imminent; indeed the idea is still
> rather differently understood by different people. While that has been an
> advantage in some ways in 1998, I think 1999 has to be the year when the
> DNER is tackled in detail. There are promising signs, including overseas
> projects which implement some of the concept in their particular
> circumstances, and software products which might provide the basic
> under-pinnings. I believe CEI hopes to make specific investments in
> implementing the DNER in 1999. 

We would be very happy to participate in these developments as they
unfold.  As a small step towards the DNER, we will be providing access to
the ISI databases via Z39.50 in early 1999.

Terry
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Terry Morrow (Academic Marketing Manager)    E-mail:[log in to unmask]
BIDS (ingenta ltd)                    Tel: (direct-dial):- +44 1225-826277
University of Bath                                  Fax :- +44 1225-826283
BATH, BA2 7AY, UK                                   http://www.bids.ac.uk/
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