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CHEMISTRY LISTSERV NEWS
Interesting Discussion Topics/Threads
Faculty member advocates action to combat journal crisis
Maggie Johnson forwarded to CHMINF-L a letter that Professor Reed (UC
Riverside)
sent to chemistry department chairs and library faculty committees regarding
the scholarly journal crisis. Professor Reed advocates that chemistry departments
attempt to "gain control of their journal budgets." Chuck Huber comments that
Professor Reed also published a Perspective piece in the January 29 issue of
C&E News entitled "Drowning in a Sea of Refereed Publications" which
presented a broader view of the issues. Maggie Johnson contacted Professor Reed
and indicated that he was interested in meeting with librarians at the ACS meeting
in San Diego. Steve Bachrach reminded us that he had recently published an article
on the scholarly journal crisis entitled "The Journal Crisis: Redirecting the
Blame" in J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 2001, 41, 264-268.
ACS preprint policy
This discussion began with an announcement from ACS Publications stating that
preprints will be viewed as an electronic publication and will not be considered
for publication in ACS journals. Bob Buntrock points out that CAS's policy to
index electronic publications is consistent with ACS policy that electronic
preprints are publications. Edlyn Simmons commented that for a patent examiner,
a publication is "anything available to the public in any medium." Robert Parker,
General Manager of the RSC Journals and Reviews states that "electronic-based
preprints should be considered publications." He further states that while the
RSC does permit the submission of preprint articles to their journals, he does
not see the benefit of preprint servers for chemistry in our current environment
of rapid electronic publication including peer review. Dr. William Town (Director
of ChemWeb) states that the Chemistry Preprint Server sponsored by ChemWeb,
provides a permanent archive to the preprint and its associated metadata. Preprints
will remain accessible on the Chemistry Preprint Server even after publication,
however, an author has the option to change the link from the preprint to the
final version of the published article. Because of the controversy surrounding
chemistry preprints, he also encouraged other publisher to make their policy
known on whether they would accept submissions if a preprint version exists.
Dr. Patrick Jackson, Elsevier's Publishing Director for Chemistry and Chemical
Engineering stated that articles posted to a preprint server may be submitted
in the normal way to their journals. For a clarification of the ACS policy that
the preprints, in either print or electronic format, from an ACS division meeting
may be considered for publication in an ACS journal, see page 8 of the April
23, 2001 issue of C&EN.
Online access to Nature
Robert Michaelson began this disscussion thread when he posted Nature Online's
proposed new institutional site license which will take effect April 1 and asked
how many libraries were planning to subscribe. Many librarians expressed concern
that under the new institutional site license, while users would have immediate
access to the research articles, there would be a 12 week delay for access to
the "News and Views" articles. In addition, Howard Dess expressed
dismay at the large surcharge for online access. While both Dana Roth and George
Porter stated that they did not support the 3-month delay in access to sections
of Nature, they did understand Nature's concerns about loosing subscriptions,
since it does not have society support. Robert Michaelson kept the list informed
regarding this issue by posting a list of institutions that have decided not
to subscribe to Nature Online. In April, George Porter sent a message announcing
a change in Nature Online's institutional site licensing policy that permits
complete access to journal content effective May 1, 2001.
Interesting Reference Threads / Questions
Author searching problems
There was an extensive discussion about problems with author searching as a
result of Rob McFarland's inquiry from a faculty member concerned that his two
most recent papers could only be found in SciFinder under his last name and
first two initials instead of under his last name, first name and middle initial
which is how his name was listed on the papers. Issues discussed ranged from
problems associated with the impact of electronic publication on how the SciFinder
database is created to more traditional author searching issues such as searching
for transliterated names, compound names, name changes for women, oriental names
and indexes that regularly use only last names and initials such as Medline
and ISI. Suggestions for improving the situation (and reasons why these suggestions
might not work) were also discussed. To follow this discussion see the following
threads.
Explanation of structure searching
In response to Ann Eastham's request for a written description of how structure
searching works behind the scenes, Andy Berks sent a citation to his article
that appeared in "The Encyclopedia of Computational Chemistry". Harold Helson
of CambridgeSoft's ChemFinder development team also replied with a lengthy
explanation.
CAS' criteria for indexing an article
Sources for German government documents
Bernd-Christoph Kaemper provided a comprehesive search strategy and list of
databases to search when looking for German government funded research reports.
Keep or cancel print Chemical Abstracts?
While this issue has been discussed numerous times, Michelle Wilde created a
web page that contains the summary of the responses she received to her inquiry
on STS-L. She also includes a summary of Kevin Lindstrom's survey conducted
in September 2000 as well as a response regarding accreditation from Cathy Nelson,
Secretary, Committee on Professional Training.
Chemistry collection issues
Stealth journals
Dana Roth alerted list members to a number of new stealth journals. Stealth
journals are initially published as part of an established journal and then
spun off as new journals, requiring a separate subscription..
Chemistry journal cost study
Ken Rouse shared the url for a detailed cost study of 157 journals held by the
University of Wisconsin Chemistry Library.
D-Lib Magazine article
An excellent article by Ken Frazier, Director of Libraries at the University
of Wisconsin, Madison, discussing issues for libraries related to online journal
aggregation packages.
Out-of-print web sites
Octavia Perry posted a list of her favorite web sites for finding out-of-print
books in response to a request.
Product/Vendor Announcements
American Physical Society announces enhancements in content, functionality
and interface to PROLA (Physical Review OnLine Archives)
Linux4Chemistry web site lists linux software available for chemistry
HighWire Press list of free articles (free sites, free trials and free back
issues after a specified time period)
Web version of Organic Synthesis to be developed by Organic Synthesis
and CambridgeSoft.Com
G&B bought by Taylor & Francis
STN's free electronic (e-mail) newsletter sign-up instructions
Next generation TOXLINE announced by NLM
Internet Grateful Med to be phased out
Springer decides to make legacy webpages of Molecules Online freely
available
Dover Publications announces web site
Sources
Most of the information above comes from January through March 2001 CHMINF-L.
In addition, PAMnet and STS-L are also monitored for chemistry related topics
and issues of interest. In an effort to keep the discussion topics up-to-date,
readers are encouraged to forward current information about these topics to
me.
CHMINF-L Listserv Archives
PAMnet Listserv Archives (slapam-l)
STS-L Listserv Archives (Science & Technology Section, ACRL)
Nancy R. Simons
Library and Information Center
Georgia Tech
Atlanta, GA 30332-0900
404-894-1387 (office)
404-894-3005 (fax)
nancy.simons@library.gatech.edu
Comments to:
Susanne J. Redalje
Chemistry Division
(206)543-2070(voice)
(206)543-3863(fax)
curie@u.washington.edu
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All Rights Reserved
This page updated May 2001