[Web4lib] the journal "presence" in online databases

Tue Jul 17 15:19:49 EDT 2007

The issue of the journal 'vanishing' into the database is a familiar one 
to any of us who do a lot of undergraduate teaching. I work with 
undergraduates who mostly don't do a lot of journal reading. And when 
they do look for articles, databases easily obfuscate the idea of a 
group of articles in a larger unit. From the student's perspective, the 
journal really only comes into play in one way and that is the 
mysterious and sometimes frustrating process of clicking 'FindText at NCSU' 
that launches our OpenURL resolver to see if we have the article online. 
>From a /discovery/ point of view (since most searching doesn't include 
restricting to particular titles), the fact that the articles appeared 
in a particular journal doesn't matter since the article is what they 
want. From an /access/ point of view, the journal is important obviously 
as the fundamental unit that is bought and sold and which determines 
whether the student gets to /easily/ read the article or not (a point 
they almost completely don't appreciate or understand until told so). 
Students using Google Scholar off-campus without configuring it for our 
resolver often run into this rough truth when they locate a restricted 
non-Open Access article with a $30 or more price tag on it. We get 
questions on that on a regular basis.

My perspective on this is that publishers would love to sell articles 
individually like this - without of course giving up or in any way 
impinging the market for hefty journal subscriptions. But if we ever 
truly moved to a full-fledged music-like environment where the article 
is the individual unit, then I think lots and lots of articles likely 
would never get bought (or read or cited - and maybe that's not really 
an issue). But to me that doesn't sound like a money-maker for 
publishers since without mass audiences of customers, like popular music 
enjoys, a viable long tail of sales for obscure articles may or may not 
happen. And it would take a lot, I mean an awful lot, of individual 
article sales to make up for journals priced in the 4 and 5 digits.  All 
this of course is besides the things like editorial control, faculty 
career management, and other types of content like the ones Jennifer 
mentions below that are at least partially journal, rather than solely 
article, functions.

Scott

jennifer.kirton at dpi.nsw.gov.au wrote:
> I can only comment from a science based library and a science research 
> organisation.
>
> My library subscribes to databases which only "selectively" index the peer 
> reviewed (science) articles from particular journals, so that is another 
> factor which you need to consider.  A simple peruse of the indexed journal 
> list does not always reveal this.
>
> Many of my scientists, while enjoying the immediacy and access of the 
> online journals, still regret the loss of browsability of the whole issue, 
> which they feel gave them an all round view of the subject.  Several think 
> that this is a real concern for future scientists. 
>
> They also miss the book reviews, letters to the editor, editorial comment 
> and  in some journals/magazines adverts for equipment etc.  One 
> journal/magazine which is available online, I still also get in print for 
> one scientist who wants to read the adverts to look at the latest 
> equipment used in his applied field.
>
>  As Kathleen said, there is a loss of "wholeness".
>
> As for cover art, this is the last year I will get to enjoy the beautiful 
> artwork on the frontcover of JAVMA (Journal of the American Veterinary 
> medicine Assoc) as we move that title online!!  If you have ever seen it, 
> you will know what I mean!!
>
>
> Jennifer Kirton
> Library
> NSW Department of Primary Industries
> Australia
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> "K.G. Schneider" <kgs at bluehighways.com> 
> Sent by: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
> 17/07/2007 06:18 AM
> Please respond to
> kgs at bluehighways.com
>
>
> To
> <web4lib at webjunction.org>, "'Code for Libraries'" 
> <CODE4LIB at listserv.nd.edu>
> cc
>
> Subject
> RE: [Web4lib] the journal "presence" in online databases
>
>
>
>
>
>
>   
>> Karen,
>>
>> I suspect one could find a parallel for the loss of the "wholeness" of a
>> journal issue" in the world of popular music.  Does the "album" as those
>> of us of a certain age knew it still exist when most music is acquired
>> (I'd like to say purchased, but spend too much time around college-aged
>> people to use such a ridiculous word)as single tracks rather than as
>> part of a larger whole?
>>     
>
> That goes back to Nathan's astute question on Code4Lib. Clearly the modern
> music audience has returned to the model of my very early youth: the 
> single.
> But from what I am hearing (based on interviews so far with writers and
> publishers) the audience (readership) for literary journals expects, well, 
> a
> literary journal. 
>
> The table-of-contents browsing enabled by some databases for some journals
> seems perfectly adequate from a research point of view - if you squint 
> from
> a distance. But from both a literary and research perspective, it has some
> disturbing limitations: lack of cover art, loss of design (a poem on a 
> page,
> for example, presented with a specific font), loss of advertising and
> ephemera... even the context and juxtaposition of the content in a print
> journal has meaning. 
>
> Then there may be another curious problem with the small-journal economy. 
> If
> the subscriber base for a journal dries up, then it is likely to go away. 
> So
> the action intended to help ensure access to the journal - moving from 
> print
> to electronic-may kill it. I still have to do some research into the
> economics of journals (a vendor's help here would be useful) so this is 
> more
> provisional thinking. This has even greater ramification if you consider
> that part of the journal economy (more of an ecology, reall) includes the
> writers and artists who contribute its content (often for no more than the
> grand sum of a subscription to the journal, if even that). 
>
> I think librarians have been trying to do the right thing: the move from
> print to electronic is terrifically useful for a great deal of content, 
> and
> if you have to choose-and we often do-then electronic access is an
> improvement. I wouldn't want to *not* have electronic access to what we
> have. But there isn't a 1:1 correlation between a literary journal and its
> online indexed articles. It's like replacing a statue on a college green
> with a fiche reader and a fiche of pictures of the statue that was there.
> You have some of the raw information (though as noted above, definitely 
> not
> all of it), but you do not have the thing itself.
>
> Karen G. Schneider
> kgs at freerangelibrarian.com 
>
>
>
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