Spine E-Pages Questions/Discussion

["Michelle Kraft" <kraftm@ccf.org>]

[Apologies for X-Posting]

One of our patrons asked us to get an article that is only available on
Spine's ePages.  Spine 26(4):E50-E54. Feb. 15, 2001. Unfortunately, I
noticed that Spine restricts even their ePages to subscribers.  What makes
this even more frustrating is that Spine's licensing agreement prohibits
interlibrary loan of their electronic content.

Now a question I ask is how the heck are you supposed to get the article
if you don't subscribe to Spine, and a library can't technically loan it
to you?!

I know Pediatrics ePages are available to everyone on their site, whether 
you are a subscriber or not.  What other journals/publishers are like 
Spine restricting their ePages to subscribers only?  What other journals/ 
publishers are like Pediatrics and allow access to their ePages?

When publishing an e-article do authors know that their articles are being 
severely restricted to only those who buy the journal?  Wouldn't this 
restriction also cause a decrease in readership, leading to less people 
citing the author?  We all know our doctors are VERY concerned with how 
many times they have been cited and by whom.

Does anybody have any solutions?  This hoarding of ePages by Lippincott 
infuriates me.  This completely inhibits scientific research.  I even 
called to ask why.  I was eventually transferred to the person responsible 
for electronic publishing and I was told that there is nothing he can do, 
this is business and they would lose money if they made their ePages free, 
and that eventually publishing will just be a pay on demand system with 
credit cards.

Our library does subscribe to the print of Spine.  However, Lippincott's 
restricts online access to only one specific IP address of one computer, 
unless we want to pay for a site license.  We have NAT computer network, 
which means that each time a computer goes through the firewall it is 
randomly assigned an IP address within our IP range.  Therefore, it is 
impossible to say X computer will always be X IP address.  Which leaves us 
the option of an expensive site license, which we do not have.

Are there other libraries like us who have this IP situation and how are 
you dealing with a publisher who says you can only have access from a 
specific computer, or else buy a site license? 

I appreciate any information anybody can give me and I will summarize for 
the list.

___________________
Michelle Kraft
kraftm@ccf.org
Medical Librarian
Cleveland Clinic Foundation
phone: 216-445-7347
fax: 216-444-0271