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Web of Science, an Enabling Architecture
Dennis Dillon's message about the high price of ISI's Web of Science (WOS)is interesting for two reasons, the question of price and the mistaken idea that the WOS is simply a repackaging of previous material. Let's deal with that one first. While the WOS is another presentation of material, it not just "repackaged for the Web." It is much more than that. The WOS, which I have admittedly only seen briefly, is fundamentally different in that it provides an enabling architecture for making an interlinked set of scholarly resources. In many ways, the WOS is producing on a grand scale and in a multi disciplinary way, what the astronomical community has had for a couple of years now in the NASA-supported Astrophysics Data System (ADS). It is much more than a searchable database of abstracts, and much more than a database of references and citations. It actually provides an underlying mechanism by which a reader can click on a reference in an article she might be reading, and jump to the abstract of the reference. And if that seems interesting, the mechanism can be built (as has been done for astronomy) to link directly to the full text of the referenced article. Each article you read also carries with it the list of subsequent articles which have cited the subject article. Their abstracts ( and accompanying full text) can also be retrieved directly to the reader's machine. By working through the ADS or the WOS it is possible to retrieve articles in different journals from different publishers (assuming that the institution subscribes to the relevant journals). An example of an electronic journal which utilizes this capability is the Astrophysical journal: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/. If your institution does not subscribe, you can use the username: charlstn with the password: demo which will work until the end of the year. The Astrophysics Data System can be seen at any time for free at http://adswww.harvard.edu/. Look at their "Abstract Service." Both the ADS and eventually the WOS provide a Web of interconnected, instantly available resources which, in my opinion, provides an unparalleled increase in the power for individuals to access scholarly information. This one capability to link across publishers and eventually across disciplines is what sets the electronic environment apart from previous paper-bound models for exchanging scholarly information. It also makes the WOS much more than a republishing of previously published data. Rejecting a subscription for that argument is short sighted, but may be appropriate anyway (see later). It is critically important that the scholarly community understands the deep differences between an interconnected set of electronic resources and individual publications, either paper or Web-based. Now for the price problem, and this is a major problem. As my arguments above show, any bibliographic abstract database worth it's salt will have to provide links to different collections of articles. They will be central to a functioning interlinked system. Consequently, they will occupy a position of power where a good system will be able to charge enormous fees because they provide the necessary capability to interlink which scholars will demand. If this happens willy-nilly, we could end up back in the bad old times when it was possible to search abstracts (say through Dialog) but the costs were so high as to be prohibitive -- except perhaps for the legal and medical communities which seemed to be better funded. High prices certainly froze out most of the smaller institutions. Now we see developing a situation where libraries need to exercise market power to ensure that critically important services are not priced so high that large segments of the scholarly community are effectively prevented from participating in the effective pursuit of knowledge. I can envision a system arising in which the references and citations can be produced rather inexpensively - when the data are provided electronically by the publishers. But it can only be inexpensive if the process is automated and takes advantage of the electronic capabilities now available. The ADS example shows what can be done for less than ten percent (actually close to five percent) of the cost of publishing all the journals which are included in the database. Spread among all subscribers the cost to operate such a system would be less than $1,000 per year. But, we must remember that such low costs can only result from automation and publisher cooperation, things which are easier to accomplish in a small field such as astronomy. In summary, I agree that high prices for the WOS service will disenfranchise many small institutions, and that's why libraries should be concerned. It's the long term future which is at stake. But to fight effectively for the future, we all have to understand the appropriate rationale. And we all have to appreciate that interlinked information (when done well, and what I have seen of the WOS is done well) is not simply the same information repackaged. Rejecting WOS because it appears to be reselling the same material is an argument based upon a short term (and erroneous) argument. The long-term health of the system for exchanging and preserving scholarly knowledge will depend upon how well we understand (and act upon) the deeper underlying consequences of the inevitable move to Web based, interlinked electronic resources. --Peter B. Boyce-- P.S. I have no connection whatsoever with ISI. Peter B. Boyce ________________________________________________________________________ Senior Associate and past Executive Officer pboyce@aas.org American Astronomical Society Phone: 202 328-2010 2000 Florida Ave. #400, Washington, DC 20009 FAX: 202-234-2560 http://www.aas.org/~pboyce
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