RE: Aggregator Embargoes -- more info

[Sam Brooks <SBrooks@epnet.com>]

The competing database mentioned below has a lot more than 10 titles with
embargo periods.  You may only find 10 listed as embargoed on their title
lists, but that's because they are not indicating the embargo period for
all titles with embargoes.  In fact, for the vast majority of titles with
embargoes, I can find no such notation on their title lists.  I'm not sure
why they would show some and not others.  This is the database vendor's
decision though - I'm just commenting on this because of the resulting
false comparison below.  However, if you contact the publishers, they will
likely be very clear that the embargoes are indeed there - whether they
are shown in the database vendor's title lists or not.

The other part of the comparison that was left out is the number of
"halted" titles in each database ("halted" means that while indexing is
ongoing, full text is halted).  Surely someone concerned about embargoes
would be even more concerned about halted titles.  In most cases, EBSCO
has a small fraction of the number of halted titles that are found in
competing databases.

It's important to note that comparing the numbers of titles in a database
(embargoed or not) does not allow librarians to measure the quality of
sources included.  In an academic library, should "Radio Control Car
Action" or "Humpty Dumpty's Magazine" be valued above quality peer
reviewed journals that have an embargo period?  In the case of the two
versions of Academic Search and the competing database Donnie mentioned
below, according to the web sites, here is a comparison which should be
considered:

DATABASE				A	B	C	D

Academic Search Premier		2205	7	55	2143

Academic Search Elite		958	4	45	909

Competing Database*		669	101	12	556

A = Total peer reviewed full text journals
B = Number of "Halted" titles (indexing continues, full text is halted)
C = Number of publications which have ceased naturally or changed names
D = Total number of Active, Ongoing full text peer reviewed journals

* The evaluation of the competing database was done on April 11, 2001.  
The numbers may have changed since then.

This chart does not indicate the number of journals which have been
completely removed from these databases (by publishers).  Those numbers
would be very surprising to most librarians.

Academic Search contains many journals from leading academic publishers
who had never before worked with aggregators.  It also contains many
journals from publishers who had previously worked with many aggregators
but experienced subscription cancellations, and as a result are now more
selective/careful about licensing their content.  Therefore, it does
contain more embargoed titles than competing databases.  However, it also
contains many more ongoing, full text peer-reviewed journals than
competing databases.

Sam Brooks
Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing
EBSCO Information Services

-----Original Message-----
From: Donnie Curtis [mailto:dcurtis@admin.unr.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 6:16 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Aggregator Embargoes -- more info


Some additional information about EBSCO's embargoed titles:

- EBSCOhost MARC records for individual titles now have notations about
  embargo periods.
- The information I shared is for Academic Search Premier. For Academic
  Search Elite, 440 of 1444 titles (29.8%) have embargo periods of 3
  months or longer. 295 (20.4%) have embargo periods of 12 months or
  longer.
- Liblicense-l subscribers were actually notified of the EBSCO practice by
  Sam Brook, Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing for EBSCO, in
  March:  "...some journals that don't now have embargoes may have
  embargoes in the future ..." I think we are starting to experience that
  future.

Sam Brook said "Many full text journals in aggregated databases have
embargo periods." How many seems to depend on the database. The ProQuest
Research Library (Core and all modules) has 10 titles with an embargo
period longer than 30 days.

Donnie Curtis
University of Nevada, Reno

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> [mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu]On Behalf Of Donnelyn Curtis
> Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 3:30 PM
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject: Aggregator Embargoes
>
>
> I just took a look at the title list for EBSCO's Academic Search Premier
> and was shocked to realize that of the 2947 full text titles, 1460 (or
> 49.5%) have an embargo period of 3 months or longer. 1081 (36.7%) have an
> embargo period of at least 12 months. For these titles, the full text
> holdings statements on EBSCO's title lists and MARC records, which many of
> us are putting in our catalogs and on our web pages, says "to present."
>
> This is not only misleading to our users, but I'm not sure that all of us
> are aware that some of our databases are losing their currency. It is a
> trend that has crept up on us, or at least I was never informed. I haven't
> had a chance to look at title lists for other aggregator databases to see
> whether this is an industry trend or if it is limited to EBSCO.
>
> The publishers whose journals are embargoed in Academic Search Premier are
> familiar academic publishers: Carfax, Taylor & Francis, Blackwell,
> Blackwell Science, Routledge, Oxford University Press, American Institute
> of Physics, Springer-Verlag, Sage, Lauwrence Erlbaum, and several others.
>
> Donnie Curtis
> Director of Research Services
> University of Nevada, Reno Libraries