Re: Ebsco Full-Text Databases Post

[kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de]

Michael,

don't you know your own journals policy, or is it complete nonsense what
is written on the Science Homepage:

"Science Express provides rapid electronic publication of selected Science
papers. Print versions of these papers will appear in Science in several
weeks. Some editorial changes may occur between the online version and the
final printed version. Access to the PDF version of the papers is
available free to all AAAS members (including individual Science and
Science online subscribers). Nonmembers can view papers with the
pay-per-view option."  (Source:
http://www.sciencemag.org/sciencexpress/recent.shtml)

Sounds a bit different from what you just told us ...

Bernd-Christoph

Michael Spinella wrote:

> David,
> 
> You have referenced Science Express here as an example of situations where
> "the paper" version is more complete". This is nonsense. Science Express
> articles do not appear in print. Ever. And every article that appears in
> the print Science is posted to Science Online on the same date it first
> appears in print. All print articles are available at the same time,
> without embargo, to all individual members as well as to all readers at
> subscribing institutions.
> 
> Mike Spinella
> 
> ______________________
> 
> >>> dgoodman@Princeton.EDU 04/01/01 08:14PM >>>
> Since Marg cited me, I'd like to further explain what I meant:
> 
> In most scientific journals that are published as a paper journal and also
> in electronic form, either the two are identical or the electronic form
> has enriched content, as videos and the like, and should be regarded as
> the version of record, as more and more publishers are doing.
> 
> There are two types of cases where the opposite occurs, and the paper
> version is more complete:
> 
> a. There are some journals which provide the complete electronic version
> only to individual subscribers, and a truncated or partially embargoed
> electronic version to libraries: Nature is the most noteworthy, but
> Sciences's "Science Express" preprints are another example.
> 
> b. many articles in the Gale and Ebsco databases are not complete. Full
> text is meaningless: it can mean either: The full article, as contrasted
> to an abstract, with the full article including the figures and so on --
> I've heard it suggested we switch to the term "full page images" for
> these.  Or the full text, in the sense of ascii text, without the figures
> etc. I think we should call these "ascii text only" or "full ascii text
> only". I would suggest that the aggregator vendors such as Ebsco and Gale
> consider selling a databases made up of ONLY those journals for which they
> have full page images. Maybe they even do now, and I just haven't figured
> it out among their many choices.
> 
> With respect to reading and scanning ease, my experience is that most
> really rapid readers, a group including university faculty, find it much
> faster to read on paper than on the screen. Even they prefer e-journals;
> they just print a copy, and read it.
> 
> Scanning is a problem. I have yet to see an electronic version of a
> journal whose table of contents is as usable as the print version. Much
> experimentation and ingenuity is needed here.  Discovering relevant items
> by accident is probably the least efficient way of doing so; surely
> semi-random search algorithms will be developed.
> 
> Princeton switched to electronic only for almost all the Academic Press
> journals and has had no complaints at all.