RE: Aggregator Embargoes -- more info

["Donnie Curtis" <dcurtis@admin.unr.edu>]

Perhaps some others of you who maintain ejournal web pages can chime in,
but my own experience contradicts some things that Sam is saying here. I
am deep in the trenches of maintaining a spreadsheet of electronic
journals that includes full text titles from aggregated databases. We have
both ProQuest and EBSCO databases, and I frequently download current title
lists and update my spreadsheet.

I have been told before by EBSCO people about competitor databases losing
content. That was true for one of the full-text databases to which we
subscribed, and we dropped our subscription for that reason. But I haven't
found it to be the case with the ProQuest Research databases. Using the
lists that are posted at umi.com, in the past year I have only had to
remove a handful of ProQuest titles that no longer have full text or have
disappeared altogether. I don't know what time period Sam is using, but I
know I haven't removed anywhere near 100 titles in the past year, though I
have added many more which were new. One might suspect, then, that "halted
titles" are not removed from the posted ProQuest source lists, but if that
were the case I would be hearing about them all the time from librarians
who are very good at letting me know about journals on our full text lists
that do not actually have full text. Most of those messages I get are
about supposed full-text journals that are nowhere to be found in
Lexis-Nexis. I know that they would also let me know if the full text for
the last 12 months wasn't showing up.

I am not disputing that Academic Search Premier has a high number of
peer-reviewed journals. To provide some of those journals in their
databases EBSCO has accepted (or initiated?) the embargo model. I heard a
ProQuest trainer yesterday say "we are not going down that [embargo]
road." She was the one who brought the topic up, commenting that it is
being hotly debated in libraries she visits. I would agree that the
content of their databases is less scholarly than some of the content in
EBSCO's "Premier" database. Each library needs to decide which databases
are appropriate for its users, and whether for those users the proportion
of non-current peer reviewed journals or the currency of articles is more
important.

Most of us have more than one type of user. Researchers need peer-reviewed
journals (preferably current!), and we find various ways to provide them.
An aggregated database might be the best way for some libraries, but they
need to be acutely aware (and their users need to be made aware) that they
will not be getting the most current articles from those journals. That
price will be acceptable for some and unacceptable for others. The
monetary price for current subscriptions to electronic peer reviewed
journals is too high for many libraries, so an aggregated database may be
the only choice.

If EBSCO or other database providers can include access to deep backfiles
of electronic journals and publishers' web sites do not, then I think the
database becomes valuable as an archive, along the lines of JSTOR. One
possibility is that the Public Library of Science proposal will be
accepted and publishers themselves will provide free access to journals on
their web sites excluding the most recent year, as in the Highwire Press
model. Ultimately, the library marketplace will govern the models for
providing access to electronic journals. Other factors will be the
behavior and the attitudes of researchers (as authors and readers) and
developments in the technology for searching and linking across databases
and web sites. We can be active or passive participants in the changes to
come. Some of us will try various things and change our approaches several
times and drive our serials catalogers crazy.

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 Sam Brooks
> Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2001 4:23 PM
> To: 'liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu'
> Subject: RE: Aggregator Embargoes -- more info
>
> 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