School of Medicine Library

University of South Carolina

Communications

Spring 1998 Issue


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Library Migration to E-Journals:

"Hold on! They're coming!"

For the past few years, libraries have had to take a wait-and-see attitude before starting major conversions from printed journals to electronic journals. There are a number of reasons for this; notably a lack of standardization of communications options, and a dearth of journals in the full electronic format.

Due to the emergence of the WWW, as well as a vast increase in publishers' commitments to electronic formats, we are on the verge of witnessing a "giant leap" which will accelerate library acquisition of electronic products. Even scientific, technical, and medical publishers, who have long been the most conservative, are now converting their information for online distribution.

Our library recently acquired access to over 100 online full-text journals for which we have current subscriptions. Because of the unproven nature of electronic journals, as well as archival questions, the selected titles mirror titles in our collection with proven usage. (We attempted to acquire the most-used titles first; but not all of our most-used titles are immediately available online.)

Through a combination of databases and agreements with publishers, we are working on providing as much electronic access for our faculty and students as possible, seeking out more titles as they become available. We realize we cannot continue to duplicate indefinitely. Costs will increase and consume any savings realized through our recent journal cancellation project. However, we hope to increase usage and encourage library patrons to familiarize themselves with the electronic format and its capabilities.

Measuring online usage of journals is a problem, since not all systems allow us to keep track of how many times a journal title is accessed. We must rely on feedback from our faculty and students to determine the ease with which they are able to access this electronic information. Please let us know of any problems when using the various applications!

(If you would like to know if any of your favorite journal titles are available online, check our web site at http://uscm.med.sc.edu/LIBRARY/JOURNAL.SHTML, or call Karen Warren at 733-3344.)

The remainder of the articles in this newsletter will outline additional developments regarding electronic access in the School of Medicine Library.

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Core Biomedical Collection

15 Full-text Journals Linked with OVID Medline
If you have logged into OVID Medline recently, you might have noticed that under the listing of databases that appears, there is now an additional listing: "Core Biomedical Collection 1993 to January 1998." This represents the 15 full-text journals that have recently been added to the OVID file. When searching Medline and viewing citations, you will notice a new button at the bottom that is labeled "Link". When a citation represents an article from one of these 15 journals, the "Link" will be black instead of gray. By clicking there you will be taken directly to the full-text of the article in the Core Collection. If the article has a formatted abstract, you can use the hot-links embedded to move around in the article, otherwise you can click on the button labeled "Outline" at the bottom of the page to move to the various sections of the article. You can also click on embedded links to view references. When a full-text article is referenced by another paper, you can click on the words "full text" and you will be taken to the full-text of the cited paper (i.e., text that appears in a blue color indicates a link). The "Graphics" button at the bottom of the page provides a list of graphics that accompany the article. Click on the list to view them individually.

You can go directly into the Core Collection by making that selection initially. Searches within the full-text are run across the entire text; MeSH mapping is not available. Click on "Search" at the top of the screen for search options.

The list of the 15 journal titles appears below. We are pleased to announce that we will be adding access to additional 50 titles through OVID this spring. Watch for them.

NOTE: Windows Client/Server users must follow the update process below.

  1. From Windows 95 desktop, click "Start"
  2. Go to "Programs", the "OVID Client"
  3. Go to then click on "OVID Client Setup"
  4. Type OVID Userid and Password. Click "Continue"
  5. Software is automatically updated. A message box will appear indicating the update has completed.

If you have any questions in the use of the Core Collection, contact Sarah Gable at 733-3351.

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DISCUS: Digital Information for South Carolina Users

School of Medicine patrons now have online access to hundreds of full-text journals and reference books that are part of Infotrac's SEARCHBANK databases. This is the result of a cooperative project called DISCUS, whereby federal funds are allocated by the S.C. State Library to serve educational institutions in this state. The databases cover publications on a wide range of academic subjects, recent full-text articles from popular magazines such as Time and Newsweek, health information for patients and health professionals, and business information. A variety of references besides journals are part of each database. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are indexed, but are not full-text. Illustrations are infrequent. Below is the list of the four databases available through the DISCUS project:

General Reference Center (Periodicals Index):

110 general titles (700 full-text)

Expanded Academic ASAP:

1550 scholarly & general interest titles (500 full-text)

Business and Company ASAP:

900 titles (450 full-text)

Health Reference Center -- Academic:

250 journals (150 full-text)

DISCUS may be accessed through our home page at http://uscm.med.sc.edu/LIBRARY/SUBSCRIB.SHTML#SOM. SEARCHBANK instructions are enclosed as a handout in this newsletter. For additional help using DISCUS, please call the library and ask for reference assistance.

(For detailed lists of journals in each database, go to http://www.iacnet.com/searchbank.html.)

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Web of Science

Replaces "Science Citation Index" and is easy to use!

From the School of Medicine Home Page, you will now find a link to the Web of Science. Click on "Search" or "Information Resources", then on "Searchable Databases on the WWW", then on "Databases for School of Medicine Users". You can also go directly to the site at:
http://www.webofscience.com

Purchased by Thomas Cooper Library and made available to all USC IP addresses, this resource greatly enhances search capabilities for all USC personnel. It also enables the School of Medicine Library to drop an expense subscription to Science Citation Index in print, freeing these funds for other materials. The Web of Science offers access to all three of the Institute for Scientific Information databases:

Science Citation Index: Provides access to information from 1974 to the present, covering more than 5300 science and technical journals. Covers the sciences more generally than Medline does.

Social Sciences Index: Provides access to information from 1972 o the present, covering over 1700 social science journals and relevant items from 3300 scientific and technical journals.

Arts & Humanities Citation Index: Provides access to information from 1975 to the present, covering 1100 journals in the arts and humanities and relevant items from 6800 science, social science, and technical journals.

Through the Web of Science you can search each database independently, or search a combination. In addition to the standard access points, these databases also provide access to cited references and permit cited reference searching. After identifying a pertinent article, a searcher has the option to see a list of related articles. There are two search modes available, and the databases are updated weekly.

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PUBMED

You'll be glad you tried NLM's Web Medline

If timeliness and full-text access to well-known journals appeals to you, the National Library of Medicine's free and complete MEDLINE, PUBMED, is well worth investigating. Abbreviated citations are entered daily into this online system, making it the first place to explore for very recent materials.

Our previous newsletter covered PUBMED searching options, which differ somewhat from our OVID MEDLINE. If you would like to know more about searching PUBMED, please contact our Reference Department for details and for the PUBMED Training Schedule. PUBMED is available on our Home Page (Information Resources/Databases on the WWW -- freely available) or at:

http://www4.cnbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/

Currently, you should be able to access full-text articles from 20 journals that are linked to PUBMED directly from the various publishers' web sites. The titles currently available are listed below, along with their URL's:

Biochemical Journal:

http://bj.portlandpress.co.uk/bj

Biochemistry:

http://pubs.acs.org/journals/bichaw

Cell:

http://www.cell.com

Frontiers in Bioscience:

http://www.bioscience.org/

Immunity:

http://www.immunity.com/

Journal of Applied Physiology:

http://www.jap.org/

Journal of Biological Chemistry:

http://www.jbc.org/

Journal of Cell Biology:

http://www.jcb.org/

Journal of Clinical Investigation:

http://www.jci.org/

Journal of General Physiology:

http://www.jgp.org/

Journal of Experimental Medicine:

http://www.jem.org/

Molecular Vision:

http://www.cc.emory.edu/Molecular_Vision/

Journal of Neuroscience:

http://www.jneurosci.org/

Journal of Nutrition:

http://nutrition.org/

Neuron:

http://www.cellpress.com/

*NEJM

http://www.nejm.org/

Nucleic Acids Research:

http://www.oup.co.uk/nar/

*Pediatrics

http://www.pediatrics.org/

PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

http://www.pnas.org/

*Full-test of all articles is not available for these two titles.

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Building the Book Collection

We're catching up at last!
Thanks to a generous book budget this year, the library has been able to "catch up" on the development of its monographic collection. Under the approval of the library's Resources Management Committee, the book collection has been enhanced by the addition of monographs recommended for medical libraries in two authoritative bibliographies: the Brandon/Hill Selected List of Books...for the Small Medical Library and the American College of Physician's Library for Internists list. All titles from both lists (with the exception of those in subject areas we do not collect) have been ordered.

In addition, the Resources Management Committee is working diligently to order newly published medical monographs that have received highly favorable reviews. Doody's Electronic Journal, a reputable peer review service for recently published health science books, is being used to identify these monographs with high ratings.

Finally, the library relies on our book vendor, Blackwell North America, to notify us immediately upon publication of new books in the health sciences. Upon receipt of bibliographic information concerning the new titles, the members of the Resources Management Committee complete an evaluative process to determine whether or not each title should be purchased.

If you have any questions concerning the evaluative process we use to order new books, or if you have a title to recommend, please contact Laura Kane at 733-3352.

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Research Web Site

For information on research funding by the federal government, check out the web site of the Science Coalition at:

http://www.sciencecoalition.org/

The coalition, established in 1995, is an alliance of universities, businesses, and non-profit organizations that promotes basic research. The web site has reports on current and projected budgets, tables breaking down the federal government's spending on research and development, and comparisons of government support in the U.S. to that provided in other countries. There is also an interactive chat room called the Science Cafe.

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Journal Cancellations for 1998

The School of Medicine Library's Resources Management Committee agreed on the cancellation of 51 journal subscriptions for 1998. Faculty members were notified in a letter in December detailing the specific titles. The cancellations were based on cost-per-use and represented 20 percent of our library's serial budget, but only 3 percent of usage. In order to accommodate faculty and students, who could be adversely affected by the cancellations, the library will provide articles from these titles free of charge, when requested through our Interlibrary Loan Department. Notices to this effect have been posted where the journals were previously shelved in the current reading room and upstairs in the journal stacks. We plan to continue providing this service as long as ongoing usage justifies it. Please contact the Interlibrary Loan Department if you have any questions or special time constraints involving receipt of an article.

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Newsletter Committee Members

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Report any problems to Lisa Antley-Hearn, witch@dcsmserver.med.sc.edu

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