I am prompted by all the recent the messages concerning missing articles
and the earlier batch of messages concerning other difficulties of access
to E-journals. In sending to the list I am aware that the providers to whom
one may wish to make complaint will probably read this. Likewise,
librarians, who are, after all, the main
customers and decision makers may read this.
We have hesitated in going on-line for many reasons including awareness of
all the problems users seem to fall foul of. Many of these problems have
been aired on the list over the past months, ranging from back issue
access, renewal date problems, miscellaneous gating problems etc and
missing articles or issues. One concern to us is that these problems may
reflect back on the publishers. Our own survey described in the ALPSP
journal Vol 13 No 4 indicated that in our specialist subject area the vast
majority of actual end users would
prefer on-line access to be through our own web site rather than through
one of the main providers. I think that the service providers may argue
that this was not representative and maybe librarians would argue the same
way.
We are again actively considering going on-line with full texts and I would
welcome any advice by personal E-mail to minimise inhibitions, rather than
to the list, on how to decide what is really wanted and how to select the
best provider if one is necessary. My current inclination would be to
provide free access on our web site for paid subscribers, and a pay per
view system for non-subscribers. We can do the former fairly easily within
our own resources but the latter provides technical problems that may force
us to go to a provider
But what do people out there want? I know that everyone would really like
everything to be free but publishers have to stay in business. Does anyone
really pay per view using a corporate credit card? I imagine that not too
many would use their own personal cards.
Any offers of advice?
Regards
E.P. Goldfinch
Nuclear Technology Publishing
P.O. Box No 7, Ashford, Kent TN23 1YW, England
File reference:
Telephone: (+44) (0) 1233 641683
Fax: (+44) (0) 1233 610021
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Web site: http://www.ntp.org.uk
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