I’ve sent the following invitation to some library-related email lists. Let’s hope we get a good response.
In the year since I retired from work as a subject librarian, I’ve continued to contribute to JournalTOCs, the free scholarly journal tables of contents service. I’ve made this unpaid effort because I totally believe in the possibilities of using metadata produced by journal publishers (commercial, Open Access, institutional, etc) in order to provide economic and efficient current awareness services for researchers and students.
Now, JournalTOCs is offering libraries a free trial of a lightweight scholarly journals tables of contents customisation service. As libraries are faced with financial cutbacks, this new initiative gives libraries a real alternative to expensive database search services.
The trial on offer is available until the end of April 2011 and will provide each participating library with a searchable and browsable database of the most recent tables of contents of up to 15,000 scholarly journals to which that library subscribes, to be made available within the library’s own website interface. This means that members of the library in question will always be able to click through to the full text of articles found. If desired, features to enable saving of searches, and export of citations to EndNote or RefWorks, can also be included in the trial customisation.
If you’re interested in the fine detail of how the customisation on offer has been implemented by one particular library and what its users thought of it, please read this recent article in the code4Lib Journal http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/4134
Each participating library’s customised searchable database will have a simple interface (no complicated bells and whistles). The database will include issues published since 2008. It must be noted that only journals to which the library subscribes which produce Table of contents RSS feeds will be included. To see the 15,000 journals which currently have RSS feeds, go to the JournalTOCs service http://www.journaltocs.ac.uk/ These 15,000 journals include 1,600 Open Access journals which can, if desired, be included in the trial database. Note that new journals with RSS feeds are constantly being added to JournalTOCs.
This trial should suit small to medium academic/college/research/industrial libraries.
If your library is interested in taking part in this trial, or if you’d like more information, please register an interest with the ICBL at Heriot-Watt University, via journaltocs@icbl.hw.ac.uk
The free trial is available with no ongoing commitment, but at the end of April, participating libraries will be offered the opportunity to continue the service until the end of 2011 at a cost of Euros 650. This will pay for ongoing technical maintenance and development of the service. The service can be renewed at the end of the year.
This is, therefore, a real low cost alternative to expensive library search database systems.
Roddy MacLeod
http://roddymacleod.wordpress.com/
Will institutions who want to take up the trial have to set up their own interface as described in the Code4Lib article? Or will it just be a matter of supplying a list of ISSNs with the interface being hosted outwith the institution?
Will you be at the Haggis and Mash event in Edinburgh next week ( see
http://mashedlibrary.com/wiki/index.php?title=Haggis_and_Mash )? Perhaps I could find out more there if so.
Hi Matthew,
I’ll be there on Wed 26th. Are you going to both days?
I’ve asked the JournalTOCs Manager to answer you’re questions in more detail, but the general idea is that the customisation can fit in with your existing website, therefore no new design is needed.
Hi Matthew,
Both options are possible. Thus if you prefer that the hosting be done at journalTOCs you would only need to supply your list of ISSNs with the interface being hosted outwith the institution. In this case, we will provide you with an admin interface so you could always keep the list of your journals up to date.
Santy
Hi again Matthew,
It could fit into the http://www.dundee.ac.uk/library/ template. What a nice, bright and clear template, BTW!
Or http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/ (I’ve realised which Matthew Phillips you are)
Actually I am both Matthew Phillipses. I moved from Dundee to Durham in August. I am there both days: I’ll look out for you on Wednesday.
This article http://bit.ly/hcNtRD is relevant in the context of the above post: The Declining Value of Subscription-based Abstracting and Indexing Services in the New Knowledge Dissemination Era