RE: Will open access spell the end of medical libraries?

["David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>]

Another way to view this is that open access, by freeing the library
budget from the continuing need to pay for overpriced subscriptions, will
permit the funds available for the library to be used for better purposes,
such as assisting the users.  Since most library material is already
"accessible from the physician's office desktop or hospital workstation,"
although the library has paid for it, I cannot see how the mere fact that
the library has not paid for it will change the demand for librarians'
services.
 
The experience of most librarians since the widespread use of electronic
materials is that the demands from the users have increased. It is no
easier to indentify a relevant article now than it used to be, and the
easier physical access to larger amounts of material hardly simplifies the
problem. Librarians can in general navigate web-based and archive-based
systems more effectively than most users--the necessary skills and
mind-set are very similar to the traditional ones. Most users will have
experienced sufficient frustrations with these system to know the need for
professional assistance, just as they need it for other aspects of
computer-based operations. It is our opportunity and responsibility to
ensure that they recognize that librarians are the ones who can give the
needed service.
 
The actual danger is that the money saved from the journal cost will not
be used to support either the publication costs in open access schemes, or
the library. This is a matter of joint concern to the users and the
library, and we should be sure they work together with us on this.
 
David Goodman
Palmer School of Library and Information Science,
Long Island University 

-----Original Message----- 
From: D Anderson [mailto:dh-anderson@corhealth.com] 
Sent: Tue 11/11/2003 6:23 PM 
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu 
Cc: 
Subject: Will open access spell the end of medical libraries?

	The cover story in the November 2003 issue of Medicine on the Net
is "Open access: Will it spell the end of the medical library?" Science
writer Catherine Zandonella explores the possibility that the move to
"free" online collections may eliminate the need for a physical library
and library staff. Some excerpts, with permission from the publisher:
	
	Predictions that technology will do away with the librarian have
been around for decades. In the 1957 movie Desk Set, Spencer Tracy plans
to replace Katharine Hepburn and her staff of research librarians with a
computer. Hepburn, with usual aplomb, shows him the error of his ways.
	
	But Hepburn didn't face today's challenging mix of economic
factors and a scientific publishing industry that has been described as
dysfunctional. The pressures on hospital and medical center library
budgets are greater than ever. More than 40 states are reporting budget
deficits, which translate to cutbacks at state universities and their
medical schools. Endowments for private universities are suffering as the
U.S. economy staggers its way out of recession. As if budget cuts weren't
enough, librarians are buffeted by yearly price hikes for subscriptions to
the scientific journals and information services that their physicians and
researchers rely on most.
	
	Enter a possible savior: open access publishing. Instead of
locking up scientific research in subscription-based journals, open access
publishers make the articles freely available on the Internet. Anyone with
a computer terminal and a phone line is free to print, copy, distribute,
and reuse the article as long as they give proper attribution to the
work's authors and publisher.
	
	But freedom has its price, and medical librarians could end up
being the ones who pay it. With the onset of free access to medical
literature, accessible from the physician's office desktop or hospital
workstation, cost-conscious hospital managers may be wondering why they
should maintain a physical library when a virtual one will do just as
well. "Senior executives are looking to cut costs, so open access is
attractive," says Logan Ludwig, associate dean of library and telehealth
services at Loyola University of Chicago's Strich School of Medicine in
Maywood, IL.
	
>From Medicine on the Net http://www.corhealth.com/MOTN/Default.asp
	
Dean H. Anderson
	
COR Health
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