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The Catalyst: The Swain Library Newsletter

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January 1998

Contents

1. Library Database Searching Workshops – Winter 1998
2. George Washington Carver Day Display on Bulletin Board in Swain Library
3. BEWARE: Date Due + 15 Days ---> $5 Processing Fee Per Item Checked Out
4. Distributed Access to Software
5. SciFinder Scholar (SFS)
6. Electronic Access to Royal Society of Chemistry Journals – Coming Soon
7. Electronic Access to American Chemical Society Journals – Not Coming Soon
8. What is an Electronic Journal Subscription?
9. ISI's 10858 Most Cited Chemists
10. Braun Auditorium IP Address

Library Database Searching Workshops – Winter 1998

Sessions will be held on Socrates II, Biosis (coming soon via the web), Beilstein Crossfire, CAS Online, CASREACT, Gmelin Crossfire, and SciSearch. See this URL for schedule and registration information:
http://sul3.stanford.edu:8004/jwciii/owa/wn.draw_new#training

George Washington Carver Day Display on Bulletin Board in Swain Library

The Santa Clara Valley Section of the American Chemical Society and member Howard M. Peters successfully supported efforts to get the State of California to declare each January 5th as Dr. George Washington Carver Day. A reknowned agricultural chemist, Carver also received patents on the process and production of cosmetics, paints and stains. Stop by the first bulletin board after you enter the Swain Library to see the display on Dr. Carver.

BEWARE: Date Due + 15 Days ---> $5 Processing Fee Per Item Checked Out

Heads up Students! Please check your record in Axess to make sure your current e-mail address is listed properly. The library computer system will soon send out bills for overdue books two weeks after the due date. Even when the book is returned, a $5 PER ITEM billing fee will be due.

If you don't know how to check your record, ask at the Swain Loan desk. (We can't do it for you but we do have cheatsheets explaining how to do it.)

Visiting Scholars: Your e-mail address must be reported to the Privileges Desk at Green library where it will be entered into your record. The same billing fees apply to any of your library books which are two weeks overdue.

To all: This is a system wide change so pay attention to due dates for all of your Stanford library books. If you should change your e-mail address for any reason, it is your responsibility to get the new address into the library system, it does not happen automatically.

Distributed Access to Software

Currently, only Macintosh versions of software programs are loaded on a server for distributed access. I'm interested in knowing if you need distributed access to PC versions of programs as well. If yes, please send me a note and indicate what PC versions of software packages of interest. FYI, here's a list of available Macintosh programs:

• Chemintosh Professional
• CS ChemOffice (includes ChemDraw, Chem 3-D, and ChemFinder)
• Introduction to Spectroscopy, Hypercard tutorial
• Kaleidagraph
• LabView
• MathCad
• Organic Reaction Mechanisms, Hypercard tutorial

Access and copying instructions for programs available is located at this URL:
http://library.stanford.edu/depts/swain/server.html

CS ChemOffice Users: I would appreciate it if someone from each lab would send me a note. I'm trying to identify which labs use CS ChemOffice. We have some extra copies of user manuals for potential distribution. Thanks!

SciFinder Scholar (SFS)

Many thanks to everyone who participated in testing SciFinder Scholar. Negotiations are currently underway to finalize a contract for ongoing access to SFS. Stay tuned…

Electronic Access to Royal Society of Chemistry Journals – Coming Soon

The Royal Society of Chemistry is offering free site-wide access to its electronic journals to those subscribing to the printed copy in 1998, ie. a subscription to printed ChemComm gets you free site-wide access to the electronic version of ChemComm. (See complete list of titles below). Electronic access to RSC journals should be in place by the end of January. I will send out a note to let you know when they are available.

1. J. Chem. Soc., Dalton Transactions
2. J. Chem. Soc., Faraday Transactions
3. J. Chem. Soc., Perkin 1
4. J. Chem. Soc., Perkin 2
5. The Analyst
6. Analytical Communications
7. ChemComm
8. Journal of Materials Chemistry
9. Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry
10. Faraday Discussions
11. Journal of Chemical Research
12. Mendeleev Communications
13. New Journal of Chemistry (produced by CNRI and RSC from Jan 1998)
14. Annual Reports on the Progress of Chemistry
15. Chemical Society Reviews
16. Natural Product Reports
17. Russian Chemical Reviews

Electronic Access to American Chemical Society Journals – Not Coming Soon

Due to unreasonably high surcharges ($17,000) and unacceptable conditions in the license agreement (e.g. the library is responsible for prohibited uses of the electronic version of ACS journals), I am disappointed to report that we will not be getting access to the electronic versions of the ACS journals in the near future. I will continue efforts to lobby ACS on the need to modify their prices and policies.

What is an Electronic Journal Subscription?

Scientific journals available in computerized or electronic formats offer the promise of 24 hour access from a user's desktop. With this brave new world comes a number of complex issues and questions.

• What is the definition of a “site” for institutional subscribers?
• What is the definition of “authorized users” for an e-journal subscription?
• What types of authentication are needed to limit access to authorized users?
• What impact will e-journals have on space planning for libraries?
• Where will additional funds come from to pay for the added networking, hardware and software, and subscription price increases that will be needed to acquire and deliver electronic journals?
• Where will articles be printed and who will pay?
• Who will archive e-journals and make sure that items created using older technologies remain usable?
• Currently we own print materials we purchase. Most publishers lease access to their journals. What long term impact will leasing have on maintaining library collections?
• If an e-journal subscription is cancelled, do you lose all access to it?
• How will electronic journals be used in research and instruction?
• What impact does a users' computer literacy, career path, subject area of interest, and institutional affiliation have on on their need for and use of e-journals?
• Will journal articles continue to be collated by journal title and publisher as they are now or will new distribution methods arise?
• Should authors retain copyright privileges rather than sign them over to publishers?
• Will the number of publishers be greatly reduced, with smaller publishers being squeezed out by large conglomerates?
• Will society become more further divided into information rich and information poor or will e-access reduce costs allowing more democratic access to information?

In this brief article, I hope to accomplish two things. First, I want to increase your awareness of the types of issues surrounding electronic journals because the landscape of the future is being shaped now. Cultural, behavioral, financial, and legal changes are evolving to address the new electronic media. Secondly, I would like to provide some basic information on the meaning of an electronic journal subscription to institutional subscribers.

Institutional subscriptions typically enable an unlimited number of simultaneous users to access journal titles 24 hours a day from any location on-campus and from off-campus locations with a Slip Connection to the campus server. Many publishers define a “site” as being within a certain geograpic radius (a problem for Hopkins Marine Station users).

Authorized users include those affiliated with the institution, and in some cases, on-campus visitors. Interlibrary lending is typically not permitted with e-subscriptions. User authentication is typically by IP address and/or an institutional password. We have refused to contract for e-subscriptions requiring individual user passwords because they are impractical to manage and open users to unwanted marketing. Electronic “markers” will be used to track use.

Different versions and standards exist for delivering electronic articles. Images require “viewers” such as Adobe Acrobat and the library has added several common viewers to its workstations. Articles delivered in HTML or SGML offer the advantage of easy viewing on the screen and full-text searching but are more vulnerable to alterations than are images. Because HTML/SGML versions enable articles to be interactive, publishers are offering hyperlinks to such things as raw data, related web sites, chemical structures, etc. Links between abstracting and indexing services such as Chemical Abstracts and e-journal articles will become the norm.

Some publishers claim that the cost to create the master or first copy of a journal issue may run as high as 80% of the final total costs for producing an issue. Therefore subscriptions rates are unlikely to fall significantly below the cost of print subscriptions. Publishers are experimenting with a number of different pricing models that frequently include bundling print and electronic versions in order to promote stability of their revenues. Because of the high cost of producing electronic versions from pre-computerized articles, very few publishers are willing to go back and make older materials available electronically. One exception is a company called JSTOR which is creating images for selected titles in disciplines where access to the older literature is important.

Many believe that the rate of growth for printed materials will not diminish within the next decade. This means that libraries will need to accomodate growth space in their stacks. They may also need more user space for siting additional workstations. To help us plan how library resources are spent and what services are offered, the Science and Engineering Libraries will be distributing a survey later this Quarter. Among the issues covered on the survey will be the topic of electronic journals. Hopefully, this article provides some background and food for thought.

ISI's 10858 Most Cited Chemists

The ISI's list was bought by a group of 36 French chemists who thought it should be disclosed on the Internet (with ISI's blessing to do so!). You may search either by author name in the full list at:

http://pcb4122.univ-lemans.fr/cgi-bin/perl.exe?chimistes.pl

or download the whole list (>350Kb) at:

http://fluo.univ-lemans.fr:8001/chimie/chimistes.html

Please be patient when you search as the servers they are on are small ones and risk overloading. [Source: CHMINF-L@LISTSERV news posted by Armel Le Bail, Universite du Maine, France on 12/16/97.]

Braun Auditorium IP Address

Just in case you want to use Braun for an online demonstration…

Reservations for Braun Auditorium are booked through the Registrar. If you plan on using the Ethenet connection or the ceiling mounted projector be sure to mention it to them. They will then check to make sure that all of the the equipment is working. FYI, there is an IP address assigned to the Ethernet connection in Braun. Either Grace Baysinger or Debbie Molina can supply you with the IP address for Braun if you need it. (graceb@leland, 5-1039; dmolina@leland, 3-9710).

Grace Baysinger
Head Librarian & Bibliographer, Swain Library of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering
URL: http://library.stanford.edu/depts/swain/index.html
Head, Science and Engineering Libraries Resource Group