THE POWER of LINKING What Works & What Doesn’t

John Ben DeVetteAsia General Manager

& Asst. Vice President

EBSCO Information Services

The Power of Linking

• Part I …… Definitions and General Introduction

• Part II …... Pricing of Online Journals

• Part III …. Developments & Trends in Linking

• Part IV …. My Recommendations: What You Should do to be Ready for the Future

DEFINITIONS and a GENERAL INTRODUCTION

PART I

TWO types of ELECTRONIC ‘JOURNALS’

1. PRIMARY PUBLISHER created.

Online edition of the print journal

Available title-by-title, or publisher-by-publisher

2. SECONDARY PUBLISHER Abstract & Index of Fulltext in a pre-packaged aggregated database

What is the difference between an AGGREGATOR and a GATEWAY?

• Aggregator– A secondary publisher

who licenses FULLTEXT CONTENT from primary publishers

– This content is maintained on its own server

– Includes most fulltext abstracts

– i.e. EBSCOhost, Gale, Ovid

• Gateway– An entity that provides

consolidated access and searching across titles to a variety of journals. Content may or may not be housed on the gateway provider’s server. The gateway does not try to create its own version of the content.

– Primarily a linking service

– Kinokinia’s OJ Web, Maruzen’s E-Journal Svc., EBSCO Online.

Growth of Online Journals• EBSCO’s title file contains approximately 260,000

publications• Approximately 10,000 unique online journals that

are available for subscription today– Have a price

– Or come free with print

– Or are a mainstream title (like a SPARC publication).

+10,000 Online Journals+10,000 Online Journals

• Feb 97 850 online jnls• Jun 97 1,300• Feb 98 2,200• Jun 98 2,700• Sep 99 3,622• Mar 00 5,398• Sept 01 10,000+

Compared to over 260,000 titles in printCompared to over 260,000 titles in print

8501,300

2,2002,700

3,662

5,398

10,000+

01,0002,0003,0004,0005,0006,0007,0008,0009,000

10,000

Feb 97 Jun 97 Feb 98 Jun 98 Sep-99 Mar-00 Aug-01

Total number of online journals being offered by Primary Publishers

According to the NewJour website list 10,880 electronic journals being published

as of August 31, 2001

http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/

“Secondary” e-journals

• Many secondary publishers are also creating electronic versions of print journals

• EBSCO Host has approximately 6,000 unique e-journals that we scan ourselves

Small overlap between primary online journals and secondary e-

journals

• 10,000 online journals + 6,000 e-journals – 2,000 overlap titles = 14,000 unique electronic titles available via the Web today.

PRICING OF ONLINE JOURNALS

PART II

83%

17%

Print is still being tied to the online edition most of the time

Print is still being tied to the online edition most of the time

A print subscription is required in

order to get the online

Online is available without purchase of

print[[Based on EBSCO’s title file]Based on EBSCO’s title file]

How Publishers are Pricing How Publishers are Pricing Online JournalsOnline Journals

How Publishers are Pricing How Publishers are Pricing Online JournalsOnline Journals

Online comes free with purchase of print

62%

38%Online plus print combo priced more than print

Most of the time it is impossible to order

only the electronic edition

• Publishers are afraid that cutting the connection between print and online will reduce sales even more

• Storing the print is still the cheapest and most dependable form of archival

• This was the experience of the California State Universities’ JACC consortium project.

New Pricing ModelsDatabase vendors sell access to

individual journal subscriptions and articles …online Pay-per-view

Journal publishers are creating their own databases

Subscription agents function as consortia managers

New Collaborations

Electronic linking between traditional competitors

Linking between ILS vendors, database vendors, subscription vendors, and publishers

DIS-INTERMEDIATIONDEFINITION: “to remove the middle layers

of the supply chain so that consumers can go direct

to the manufacturer.”The B2B* Movement has everyone

looking for ways to “cut out the middle man”

* B2B means “B to B” or Business to Business.

DIS-INTERMEDIATION

Publishers are trying to sell direct to libraries and “cut out” subscription agents.

PASSWORDS & USER LICENSES

• DIFFICULT because– PUBLISHERS ARE WORRIED

ABOUT COPYRIGHT–LICENSE AGREEMENTS with

publishers are VERY COMPLICATED

– Try to USE AN AGENT who will do the NEGOTIATIONS FOR YOU.

The California Solution

• The University of California System– Berkeley, Stanford, USC, etc.

• EBSCO represents this consortia to negotiate with publishers for price discounts

• Require special terms: ILL to corporate partners.

DEVELOPMENTS & TRENDS in LINKING

PART III

An example of Linking from Academic Search Premier to the Publisher via EBSCO Online #1

An example of Linking from Academic Search Premier to the

Publisher via CROSSREF #1

PubMed Central

• The NLM and NIH are creating a freely accessible web-based public library of information in the sciences

• This is a natural extension of Medline and PubMed which is also free for public use

• Form a central archive of research in the life sciences. Perpetual access!

• Medicine and the life sciences research in a freely accessible, fully searchable, interlinked form.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/

List of Journals available in PubMed

Available Journals • Arthritis Research • BMC Journals • BMJ • Breast Cancer Research • Critical Care • Genome Biology • Molecular Biology of the Cel

l 

• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Forthcoming Journals • Biochemical Journal • Bulletin of the Medical Library

Association• Canadian Medical Association

Journal• EMBO Journal• Journal of the American Medical

Informatics Association (JAMIA)

• Journal of Medical Entomology • Nucleic Acids Research • The Plant Cell • Plant Physiology• Many others …..

The most sophisticated linking available today: SFX

SFX Expensive, but powerful pop-up window w/ links

SFX pop-up screen #2

SFX pop-up Screen #3 LC catalog

SFX pop-up screen #4J STOR

SFX POP-UP $5DEAD END …

AUTHENTICATION is still a problem

EBSCO ONLINE reader screen

EBSCO ONLINE Journal Details: Proc. Of Nat Academy of Sciences

PNAS article abstract on Developmental Biology

PNAS article citation on PubMed

PubMed (PNAS) “LinkOut” feature goes to article. EO

authenticates via IP.

YOU CAN LINK OVER TO THE FULLTEXT BY

CLICKING HERE !

Online Titles in PubMed

• 4,000+ print titles indexed

• ~ 30% of titles in MEDLINE are available electronically

• 1350 available in electronic formats from more than 40 publishers and aggregators

• PubMed has links to 1200 titles, but they require a password to see the article

AggregatorAggregatordatabasedatabase Gateway to Gateway to

primary publishersprimary publishers

Library & UniversityLibrary & UniversityNetworkNetwork

The Integration Process: Linking Reference databases with the

Library’s OPAC with the Publishers

People prefer to use ONE interface, and at the most, 3 databases (when doing research)

• Most libraries today have more than 10 different and UNCONNECTED databases available. And they all use different search interfaces

EBSCO Online LINKS TO 7500+ JOURNALS … THE BEST IN THE

WORLD TODAY !!!

LINKS TO 7500+ JOURNALS … THE BEST IN THE WORLD TODAY !!!

MY RECOMMENDATIONSWhat You Should do

to be Ready for the Future

PART IV

FOCUS on the NEEDS of the USER

...and have one INFORMATION BUDGET for flexibility in buying different media.

When you buy information should you order ala carte or simply buy today’s special?

Do you want to pick and choose the information you give to your users, or do you want the publishers to choose for you?

MEASURE & COUNT information usageIF YOU DON’T COUNT, YOU DON’T KNOW!!!

LIBRARY USAGE STUDIE

S

VENDOR GENERATED

STATISTICS

USAGE STATISTICS

• Both EBSCOhost & EBSCO Online keep user statistics by user, by title, and by database

• IDENTIFY CORE TITLES• Delete low use subscriptions

USAGE STATISTICS ARE THE KEY!.

ACCESS versus OWNERSHIP

Invest more time and resources into training people how to search

• Web-based search engines appear simple, but the concept of smart-linking is not

• Researchers must be encouraged to keep on digging.

HOW MUCH MONEY ARE YOU SPENDING ON …

1. PAPER JOURNALS

2. E-journals

3. Databases.

4. (and soon) e-books

AVOID THINKING...

“HOW MUCH MONEY ARE WE BUDGETING FOR SERIALS, HOW MUCH ON ELECTRONIC MEDIA , AND HOW MUCH ON DOCUMENTS???”

INFORMATION SPENDINGPRINT

JOURNALS

ELECTRONIC JOURNALS

DOCUMENTS

ONEBUDGET!

Investing money in technology alone will not insure success.

The medium is the main attraction for many of the electronic services available today.

Libraries must live in a DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT

• CONNECTIVITY, LINKING, CONSORTIA are all important terms

• Cooperate and Share Resources with each other

• Build (virtual) bridges!