RE: Cataloguing open access

["Sloan, Bernie" <bernies@uillinois.edu>]

Jan's question about including catalog records for open access journals in
library online catalogs piqued my curiosity about a related matter.

Jan said:

"I would like to make the case that authors who publish in open access
journals...deserve their articles not to be excluded from library
catalogues..."

Yes, an entry in the library catalog will help a user find the open access
journal and eventually (maybe?) find individual articles that he or she
needs. But the articles themselves aren't included in the catalogs,
whether we're talking open access journals or more traditional journals.

I think that a more direct way to link the user with the author's work at
the article level would be make sure that abstracting and indexing
databases index articles from open access journals.

Do abstracting and indexing database providers include open access
journals in their coverage? If so, to what extent? If not, why not?

Bernie Sloan

-----Original Message-----
From: jan velterop [mailto:velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 6:29 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Cataloguing open access

Dear Librarians,

Although many of you do include them, it is sometimes a bit frustrating to
notice that not in every library open access journals are properly
catalogued . Surely, it can't be because they don't have to be paid for in
order to get access?

I would like to make the case that authors who publish in open access
journals materially contribute to the improvement of scientific
communication and therefore deserve their articles not to be excluded from
library catalogues, even though it is in the nature of open access
articles that they can be easily found using web search engines such as
Google. Inclusion in library catalogues not only ensures that they can be
browsed and found in local searches, but it also aids the general
acceptability and visibility of open access journals as alternatives to
the expensive and disseminationally (sorry!) restrictive traditional
subscription-based ones.

The cataloguing data for the almost 100 journals that BioMed Central
publishes can be found here:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/libraries/catalog

Thank you for including them.

Jan Velterop
BioMed Central