Rivers of knowledge

9th Specials, Health and Law Libraries Conference

Directory of electronic health sciences journals

A W Clark
The Alfred, Melbourne, Victoria.

Introduction

This paper presents a report on the 1999 Anne Harrison Award project: Directory of Electronic Health Sciences Journals, between September 1999 and June 2001. The aim of the project was to establish a web-based source of information on electronic health sciences journals, designed to assist Australian librarians manage these resources. The following rationale for the project was stated in the project's original submission:

Over the past two years librarians have witnessed the dramatic emergence of full-text electronic journals on the World Wide Web. This is especially true in the health sciences field, where the major publishers are competing with each other to create electronic equivalents of each of their print journal titles. Some writers in the scientific community see these developments as spelling doom for traditional print journals[1], and maybe even for technical libraries as well[2].

Many of the large scientific publishers, journal agents, and database vendors, have developed specialised web interfaces for accessing a range of electronic journals, and are eager to market their products as the 'solution' to the library's problems. Unfortunately, most health libraries in Australia are hard-pressed paying for their existing print journals, and will find it difficult to afford additional online subscriptions, when these can almost double the subscription price.

Health librarians, especially in small libraries, could easily find it impossible to keep up with changes occurring with electronic journals, or even to find accurate information on what electronic journals are currently free, or free with a print subscription. There are a number of sources of information on electronic health science journals[3], however most of these sources are not being updated, and the information given is often incorrect, and incomplete.

The project hoped to provide a single reference point for health librarians to find verified information on institutional access to full-text ejournals, eliminating the time-consuming and often confusing task of checking multiple publishers' websites. The philosophy taken was that librarians should have easy access to information regarding ejournals, and be in ultimate control of managing these resources in their libraries.

Website development

Work on establishing and designing a website began in September 1999. This included establishing a test webserver and database server (MS-SQL) in the Monash Medical Centre Library. The website pages and SQL database were created, and scripts were written, using active server pages (ASP)[4], to connect the HTML pages to the database. Database input interfaces were created using MS-Access, to input data into the database from the desktop using ODBC links. A small amount of records were entered to test the system.

An agreement was reached with the Monash University Faculty of Medicine webserver administrator to host the website's 'front-end' pages, using a UNIX Apache webserver, providing both high-level security and speed. An agreement was also reached with Monash University Centre for Medical Informatics database server administrator to host the website's 'backend' ASP scripts and datafiles on its MS-SQL server, which could provide robust industry-level database access for web users. Following these agreements the basic website files were transferred from the test servers to the permanent servers.

Serious inputting of data began in November 1999, and continued through to March 2000, when the site went live. The web address being: http://www.med.monash.edu.au/shcnlib/dehsj

After this date inputting of new titles continued steadily up until the present time. The website is to be maintained as part of the project till December 2001.

Directory content

Information in the directory was divided into eight sections. These were:

• How to use the directory
• Basic steps in managing electronic access
• Commercial management systems
• Major full-text providers
• About the directory
• Alphabetical listings of journal by title
• Free journals
• New ejournals and other news

The first five sections were designed to provide basic instructions on using the directory and useful information for librarians attempting to manage access to electronic journals in their libraries. The Alphabetical Listing, Free Journals and News sections provide links from journals titles to individual complete records for each journal title.

Records can contain the following elements:

• Journal title;
• Web address hyperlink;
• Full-text content, ie complete, partial, or none;
• Price category, ie : free, free with subscription, or online licence required;
• Full-text from volume and year;
• Price with print subscription;
• Price without print subscription;
• Individual article price;
• Whether journal is indexed in Medline;
• Learned society or association;
• Publisher, with hyperlink;
• Special notes.

The selection of titles for inclusion in the directory was limited to electronic versions of English language peer-reviewed print journals, in clinical medicine, biomedical research, nursing or allied health. The initial selection focused on key journals as identified by a number of key bibliographic sources[5-12]. After this a wider selection of titles were included, provided they were peer-reviewed. At the time of writing this report the directory contains information on 1700 journal titles, from 220 different publishers.

Table 1 provides a breakdown of categories used in the directory. Percentage figures are given for the fraction of titles falling into each of the main categories.

Table 1

Health Sciences librarians can take heart that over half the titles in this large number of health sciences journals provide some form of online access to institutional print subscribers, without the need for extra payments. It should be noted that the 'Free' category also includes a number of titles which have little or no full-text content, which lowers the free category which contain full-text, or partial full-text to 7.6 per cent. Another important point is that for a large number of titles included in the 'Online free with print subscription' category, access is limited to a 'one-user' licence. Institutions requiring site-wide licences will need to pay extra.

Promotion and publicity

Information on the Directory of Electronic Health Sciences Journals project was first published[13] in the national newsletter of the ALIA Health Libraries Section in September 1999. After the website went live in March 2000, an article was published in Health Inform, providing the web address for the directory[14]. A link to the directory was established from the ALIAnet Health Libraries webpage in June 2000[15].

An announcement about the directory was made on the listserv MEDLIB-L, on 28 June 2000. A favourable description of the directory was given on the Scout Report[16] two days later. An announcement about the directory was also sent out on the aliaHEALTH listserv on July 11 2000. The response from Australian and international health librarians, to these announcements, was enthusiastic.

By August 2000, listings of the directory had appeared in a number of Internet web directories. These included Yahoo, Medical Matrix, Northern Light, Google, Altavista, Academic Info, LookSmart, BUBL Link, British Library Internet Resources. A news item was included in the August 2000 inCite[17]. An article was also written for Health Libraries Australia[18] in September 2000, this was reprinted with some changes in the December 2000 issue of the UK Health Libraries Group Newsletter[19]. Also in December the directory was listed on the US National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) Ejournal Information page[20].

International awareness of the directory among health sciences librarians was achieved, fortunately without the need for a great deal of promotion by the author. Links to the directory from health library homepages is extensive. A search of sites containing a link to the directory produces over 200 sites, a large number of these maintained by librarians.

Usage analysis

Weekly statistics of 'hits' on the website's homepage were recorded from June 2000. Figure 1 presents a graph of weekly usage till the end of May 2001.

Figure 1

These raw statistics were recorded by the 'front-end' Apache webserver running on a UNIX computer. The graph shows that there was a usage spike following the MEDLIB-L announcement at the end of June 2000. After two weeks, usage then fell to a lower level, but showed a gradual increase over the next few months. The figures dropped down over the Christmas-New Year period, but returned quickly to the 6000-7000 hits per week level in the first half of 2001. The count over the twelve months period totalled just under 260 000 hits. Raw website statistics like this are useful for general usage patterns, however they do not actually provide specific information on how many people are using the site, and for how long.

More detailed statistics were recorded on the 'backend' database server, using LiveStats Server 5.03 software. These statistics allow a much more complete picture of website activity, which can be analysed via daily, weekly or monthly reports. The following figures were selected from a monthly report covering May 2001.

Directory of Electronic Health Sciences Journals: Analysis for the Month of May, 2001

These more detailed statistics show that during May 2001, the server recorded 51 100 hits, which were generated by 11 901 individual sessions. On average a session would take only a few minutes, and involve looking up about three pages. The typical use of the directory was a quick check of information on one title, which involves calling up two pages, first the index page, and then the specific record for the title.

Discussion

Statistics have shown a sustained level of use of the Directory of Electronic Health Sciences Journals website, over the last twelve months. Feedback from users of the directory has been favourable, showing that a wide spectrum of people were using the directory. Many librarians commented on the value they placed on the directory, admitting how difficult the ongoing management of ejournals tends to be in real life, and how the directory has been of great assistance. There has however, not been any attempt to formally evaluate the effectiveness or impact of the directory, at this stage. Qualitative evaluation is probably a prerequisite to further development of the directory.

I acknowledge the valued assistance of Assoc. Prof. Branko Cesnik, Mr Craig Wetjen, and Mr Jonothan Stribling, in developing and supporting the directory.

References

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2 Butler D. The writing is on the web for science journals in print. Nature 1999;397:195-200.

3 University of Saskatchewan Libraries. Electronic journals resource directory: directories. Available: http://library.usask.ca/~scottp/links/Directories [1999, May]

4 Kauffman J. Beginning ASP databases. Birmingham, U.K. : Wrox Press, 1999.

5 Delafosse V. Resources for health sciences: a guide for Australia. Adelaide : Auslib Press, 1995.

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7 Hill DR. Brandon/Hill selected list of books and journals in allied health. Bull Med Libr Assoc 1998;86:447-63.

8 Hill DR, Stickell HN. Brandon/Hill selected list of print nursing books and journals. Nurse Outlook 2000; 48:10-22.

9 National Library of Medicine. MEDLINE journals with links to publisher web sites. Available: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/fulltext.html [1999, May]

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12 SCI journal citation reports. Philadelphia : ISI, 1998.

13 Clark A. Anne Harrison Award 1999: Directory of Electronic Health Science Journals. ALIA Health Libraries Section National Newsletter June 1999:14.

14 Clark A. Directory of Electronic Health Sciences Journals. Health Inform March 2000:3.

15 Available: http://www.alia.org.au/sections/health [2000, June]

16 De Nie M. Directory of Electronic Health Sciences Journals. The Scout Report (June 30) 2000;7:no.8. Available: http://scout.cs.wisc.edu [2000, June]

17 Weaver B. 'Is there an e-version?' inCite August 2000; 30.

18 Clark A. 'Riding the wave: the directory of electronic health sciences Journals'. Health Libraries Australia 2000;1:1-2.

19 Available: http://www.blacksci.co.uk/hlr/newsletter [2001, Jan]

20 Available: http://www.nnlm.nlm.nih.gov/libinfo/ejournals [2000, Nov]