In the two previous issues of this newsletter, I mentioned that the Library would need to cut a significant number of journal subscriptions to balance the budget. Elsewhere in this issue, Mary Hawks has provided the results of the journal cancellation project for the 2001 subscription year. I'd like to thank the members of the Library Advisory Committee and many other UAMS faculty who provided valuable input during the process, and to thank Mary Hawks and the other staff who worked on the cancellation project.
The cut in the Library's budget is not the only reason why journal subscriptions are being canceled. Changes in scholarly communication are also a significant factor. Scholarly communication can be defined as the formal and informal processes by which the scholarship of faculty and researchers is created, published, preserved and used. The processes of scholarly communication have been changing rapidly during the past 20 years or so, and these changes have had a profound impact on the Library's ability to provide access to information. Some of the changes are as follows:
The bottom line is that, as publishing has become more commercialized, it has become increasingly difficult for people to get the information they need in a timely manner. In the next issue of the newsletter, I will outline a few initiatives that are attempting to improve this situation.
Mary L. Ryan
The UAMS Library revised its charges for Document Delivery, Interlibrary Loan and Loansome Doc articles on September 5, 2000.
The new pricing structure for
UAMS, ACH & VA users is:
Loansome Doc - $5.00 per article
Document Delivery - $5.00 per article
Interlibrary Loan - Free
The new pricing structure for
Health Professionals in the following counties:
Cleburne, Faulkner, Garland, Hot Spring, Perry, Pulaski, Saline, Van Buren
and White :
Loansome Doc - $10.00 per article
Document Delivery - $10.00 per article
Interlibrary Loan - $10.00 per article
Others (e.g., Attorneys, General
Public) in the above counties:
Loansome Doc - $20.00 per article
Document Delivery - $20.00 per article
Interlibrary Loan - Not applicable
Online forms for Document Delivery are available from the UAMS Library Homepage (http://www.library.uams.edu) Requestors from other Arkansas counties will be referred to their local AHEC Library for service.
Rush & Special Handling Requests for Document Delivery will have an additional $5.00 per request added to the regular fees.
Interlibrary Loan Rush Fee is $25.00 per item for regardless of user's location.
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) refers to requests for articles that are sent to other medical libraries.
Document Delivery (DD) refers to requests for items filled from the UAMS Library collection.
Loansome Doc (LD) refers to an online ordering system for registered users.
Please call Cindy Caton, at 686-6744, if you have any questions or need any additional information.
In early August the Library sent a list of proposed 251 journal cancellations to the Library Advisory Committee, the Academic Computing Advisory Committee, the deans of the Colleges, and the department chairs in the College of Medicine. The total cost for these journals was about $176,000 in 2000. Our goal was to reduce the journal budget by a minimum of $165,000 for 2001.
We appreciate your thoughtful responses to our proposed journal cancellations. After considering all of your requests, we have removed a number of journals from our list. The remaining 215 journals to be cancelled are listed in a spreadsheet available for download in Excel97 format (54KB). The 21 new journals for 2001 are listed on the UAMS Library web site. The journal titles that will be kept in electronic access only are also available on the UAMS Library web site. This was a difficult process and one that we will continue to face if journal costs continue to increase and the number of journals published continues to climb.
Journal Cancellations for 2001
Cancellations (215 titles)
- $146,809
Savings - switch 54 titles from print to online - $4,000 estimated
Total savings = $150,809
New Subscriptions
New titles (21) - $13,347 estimated cost 2001
Factors Considered for Cancellations
and New Subscriptions
The decision of whether or not to cancel a subscription was generally based
on the cost per use of the journal. Our guideline has been that if the use
does not justify the cost of the subscription, then we will borrow or purchase
the articles as needed rather than subscribe. Some journals were borderline
and if several faculty supported keeping the journal, then we decided to keep
it. There were a few cases where faculty made a case that a program was in
the initial stages and needed a year or two to get established. There were
cases in which a journal represented the key journal for a discipline. If
the cost was not too out of line, we kept those titles.
The list of 21 new titles resulted from the study of the 1998-June 2000 interlibrary loan statistics and a few titles that were recommended by faculty. We applied similar factors in selecting the new titles. When the cost of obtaining the articles on interlibrary loans approached the cost of the subscription, then it made sense for us to subscribe. Unfortunately we had several recommendations for new journals that we were unable to purchase this year because of the high subscription cost.
Interlibrary Loans
Since we are depending more and more upon interlibrary loans for articles
from expensive and little used journals, we are very aware of the importance
of making interlibrary loans as quick and efficient as possible. The Library
is moving money from our book budget to subsidize the purchase of articles
on interlibrary loan. We are also streamlining our interlibrary loan processes
so that delivery is more timely.
Again thanks for your help with this project. If you have questions, please contact Mary Hawks, phone: 686-6749, e-mail HawksMaryS@exchange.uams.edu.
At the present time, many of the Library's electronic resources (MDConsult and the FirstSearch databases among them) are available on campus but NOT from a faculty member's or student's home. This is because the publishers of these resources require that the Library limit access to the materials to users in the UAMS community, and the most common way of guaranteeing that users truly belong to UAMS is to authenticate them by the address of their computers, known as IP addresses. That address, obviously, does not apply to the user's home computer, so access to the electronic resources is not allowed.
However, in January 2001, the Library will implement a new feature that allows users to be authenticated from any computer they use. This new validation process will take place by matching the user's name and barcode with the name and barcode in the Library's patron database. In other words, the same information that allows users to check out materials from the Library will allow them to access electronic resources.
But, in order to take advantage of this new flexibility, all faculty, students and staff need to have a patron record in the Library's database. Students get records entered automatically from their college registration process, but FACULTY and STAFF NEED to REGISTER with us!
To be sure that your record is in the Library's database you may:
We encourage everyone who wants to have access to the Library's electronic resources from home, office, or anywhere else to register as soon as possible.
A major focus of the outreach program at the UAMS Library is providing training for health care professionals to use databases produced by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to access the most current, reliable biomedical information available. While most of the training, which is provided by the Library free of charge, takes place in the central nine counties of the state, arrangements may be made upon request to provide training for health professionals in other parts of the state.
PubMed is a system from the National Library of Medicine through which individuals may search MEDLINE, Pre-MEDLINE and other NLM databases over the Internet free of charge. Created by NLM's National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), PubMed also provides access to numerous NCBI databases for DNA and protein sequencing, genome mapping data, and 3-D protein structures all through the same search system. PubMed does not offer access to the following databases available through the UAMS Library's OVID subscription: Bioethicsline, CancerLit, CINAHL, Current Contents, Evidence Based Medicine Reviews, Health & PsychoSocial Instruments, IPA, and PsychInfo. However, PubMed is an excellent alternative for searching MEDLINE and Pre-MEDLINE on the rare occasions when the OVID system is down, as well as an excellent choice for non-UAMS health professionals who might not have access to the OVID system.
The search capabilities of PubMed vary depending on the type of search strategy constructed. MEDLINE, the premier biomedical bibliographic database, contains over 11 million citations to the journal literature. Pre-MEDLINE is a database of citations which are currently undergoing the indexing process and have not been assigned MeSH headings nor gone through the quality control review. Once a citation has been completely indexed, it then moves from the Pre-MEDLINE database to MEDLINE. A search on PubMed allows you to search MEDLINE and the Pre-MEDLINE databases as well as other NLM databases at one time. PubMed offers textword searching and allows the use of the powerful Mesh [Medical Subject Headings]. Various display formats are available for viewing retrieved citations.
PubMed also provides links to numerous publishers' web sites through which subscribers to individual journal titles can access the full text of articles. When using PubMed on the UAMS campus, you may find it will let you into the full text of some articles since many of the UAMS Library's electronic journals are IP authenticated.
Below are dates for scheduled PubMed classes at the UAMS Library. Other class times and locations may be scheduled upon request. If you would like to register for a class, or request that one be scheduled at another time or location, please contact Susan Steelman, MLIS, at 501-686-6737 or SteelmanSusanC@exchange.uams.edu.
January 16
9:00 am - 11:00 am Tuesday
February 15
9:00 am - 11:00 am Thursday
March 6th
8:00 am - 10:00 am Tuesday
The History of Medicine Associates Adopt-a-Book program allows people to "adopt" historical books in the Library's collection by paying for needed conservation treatment. Books may be adopted by individuals, departments or colleges to commemorate events such as graduations, retirements, or other special occasions.
Donors receive adoption packets with pictures of the books before and after conservation treatment, and commemorative bookplates are placed inside the books indicating who adopted the books and for whom or for what events.
Past donors include individuals such as Dr. Gilbert S. Campbell, Rose Hogan, Dr. Wayne Workman, Donna M. Wolfe and Mary Manley, Dr. A. Reed Thompson, Dr. Betty Lowe, Dr. James L. Dennis, Dr. Wilma C. Diner, Mary Ryan, the Employees of Academic Services, as well as the Colleges of Nursing and Pharmacy. The works adopted include titles from the 18th and 19th centuries, that cover many aspects of the basic sciences as well as the early studies in medicine.
Please contact Margaret Johnson, Chair, Historical Research Center, (501-686-6733 or JohnsonMargaretA@exchange.uams.edu) if you are interested in more information about the adopt-a-book program or if you would like to donate a book to the Historical Research Center.
If you would like to donate a new book to the UAMS Library in honor or in memory of someone, please contact Mary Hawks, Collection Management Librarian, (501-686-6749 or HawksMaryS@exchange.uams.edu).
When the UAMS Library outgrew its present space and moved the pre-1966 journal collection to the Library storage area in the Distribution Center, one of the challenges of getting access to those volumes was having to come to the Library, and fill out a request form to access that volume.
On September 18, 2000, those forms became available online from the UAMS Library Home Page (http://www.library.uams.edu). Please look the form and the accompanying information over, and if you have any questions, contact Dena Plaisted or Tony Ibarra.
The design of the UAMS Library allows noise to travel very easily. While some library users can tolerate a great deal of noise, others find noise very distracting. Please work to keep noise to a minimum in the study areas of the library- and the library staff is working on ways to reduce noise in the public areas of the library.
Yes, users can now bring covered drinks into the Library, but food is still prohibited because of potential damage to Library materials, equipment, furniture and carpet. People bringing food into the Library will be asked to take it outside the Library.
Thanks to Mary & Everett Hawks, Libby Ingram, Lily Liu, and Mary Ryan, the section of Markham Street for which the Library is responsible in the Adopt-a-Street Program was cleaned on September 9, 2000.
Information Services and Systems:
Belynda Dix joined the staff as the new Information Services Assistant on
September 18, 2000.
Interlibrary Loan/Document Delivery:
Veronica Stewart is the new Document Delivery Assistant as of September 11,
2000.
UAMS Library: Editor,
Amanda Saar
Soundwords: Editor, Fred Bassett
Contributors: Cindy Caton, Lynn Finister, Mary Hawks, Tony Ibarra,
Margaret Johnson, Peggy Morrison, Dena Plaisted, Mary Ryan, and Susan Steelman
Published by the UAMS
Library
4301 W. Markham, Slot 586
Little Rock, AR 72205-7186
(501) 686-5980
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