Internet journal access (fwd) Mitch Turitz 18 Aug 1997 01:35 UTC
Serials folks: I am forwarding the attached message to get input from others suffering from the same problem we are. In a nutshell: journal publishers who are offering online access to their publications for people who subscribe are NOT allowing access to institutons (such as us) who subscribe through a vendor. How are others dealing with this as your patrons demand online access? -- Mitch _^_ _^_ ( ___ )-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-( ___ ) | | | | | | Mitch Turitz, Serials Librarian | | | | San Francisco State University Library | | | | Internet: turitz@sfsu.edu | | | | http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~turitz | | | | | | ( ___ )-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-==-( ___ ) V V "I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather ... ... Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car." ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 17 Aug 1997 17:16:44 -0700 (PDT) From: "C. Stuart Hall" <cshall@sfsu.edu> Subject: Internet journal access Finally the explanation for our bafflement has emerged. I don't like it much and I expect you won't either, but what I've learned is that the journal publishers who are offering free electronic access to their journals for anyone who subscribes are making the offer for *individual* subscribers. Some of them want a single IP address--which we can't offer, since our IP addresses are too diverse, and if we truncate sufficiently to include them all, we're also including non-campus people. Some of them want a subscriber number. But the piece I just learned is that they won't accept a vendor's subscriber number. Since almost all our subscriptions are ordered through a vendor, we don't have the number they require for access. We can't switch those subscriptions from vendor to publisher-direct without (a) increasing workload and (b) reducing discounts. If I hear of or figure out any way of getting access to these sources, you'll certainly hear from me. Meanwhile, the library's full-text access is growing a bit (through AP Ideal, EbscoHost, and Project Muse), and the CARL SUMO project allows ordering full-text for next-day delivery--not like online access, but at least better than anything we had a couple of years ago. --Stuart C. Stuart Hall San Francisco State University (415)338-6394 cshall@sfsu.edu