RE: BIOSIS/ZR to be sold?

["David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>]

There are certainly a number of questions, and the first is whether this
sale, or a sale to one of the possible other candidates, is essential to
the future of Biosis/ZR.

Personally, I think that it is. Viewed from outside, there seems to have
been a serious decline in the number of institutions receiving the
complete Biosis-ZR package.

Many ARL libraries, even some near the top of the ARL rankings and with
very extensive biology programs and with generally excellent libraries do
not. The price has apparently become unaffordable for even these
libraries; smaller libraries are not even in the market. And, to quote
from a recent posting on this list:

 "Outsell data from our Pharmaceutical Industry benchmarks
  shows that BIOSIS, while a key source for information
  professionals, has a relatively low level of penetration to end-user
  desktops."

My experience in higher education is similar.

The very large proportion of material which is indexed equally well on
Medline, widely available in free or inexpensive versions, may be a factor
here. I have heard changing this discussed at Biosis for many years; it
remains.

This has been accompanied by a decline in searchability. Some of the
recent changes in the database have not been positive. The merge of the
excellent ZR taxonomic data into the much less excellent BA taxonomic
framework, the inability to search the complete run with a single set of
controlled subject terms, and the incredible deliberate failure of BA to
include genus-species names unless mentioned in the title or abstract or
otherwise prominent are all features that handicap serious use.

Nonetheless it remains essential in many fields of biology. Much of the
content is not in Medline; much of it is not in Web of Science (which in
any case lacks controlled indexing). Future generations of classical
biologists, and ecologists -- anyone who works outside the parts of
biology covered by Medline (or ChemAbs, or Agricola, etc.) will be under
an incredible handicap if controlled biological and especially taxonomic
indexing does not survive.

The second is whether Thompson-ISI is a suitable partner. (Certainly the
pricing policies of Web of Science give one pause.) I would hope their
negotiations recognized the price limitations for these products. The
great advantage of them as a partner is the location--it ensures that the
excellent indexing staff and other technical staff at Biosis will be able
to remain; both organizations are in Philadelphia. It is also true that
there would have been problems with some of the other organizations that
have been mentioned from time to time as possible purchasers: would its
prospects be better and its price likely to be more reasonable if bought
by Chemical Abstracts or Elsevier? (I have no personal knowledge, btw, of
whom the other actual possibilities may have been.)

Yes, I would have preferred Biosis to have continued as a strong,
progressive, rapidly-adapting independent organization. But as it does not
seem to have been able to, this may be the next best. It remains for us as
biological information specialists to try to ensure that we and our
biology patrons give sufficient input to see that the changes are in the
right direction, and that the usefullness of this database is not only
maintained, but improved.

Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman@liu.edu
k