Below is the listing of responses I received to my ILL processes question.  I did not post the question to MedLib L or Docline L but I may to see if I get additional information.   Many thanks to everyone who responded!   jlh

*Jan, this is a “me, too!” response.  We don’t have this sort of shared system yet among the hospitals in our health system, but I’m sure it’s coming, and we’d rather plan to manage this proactively. I hope you can share your responses (one way or another) -

*I would be very interested in your responses as I manage a consortium of 17 hospital libraries but within the 17, there are several systems with small, smaller, and larger hospitals. At present all 3 libraries in each of two system have different e-journal collections but in those two systems, really only one library does extensive filling and requesting.  The smaller libs just use what they have access to and request of the larger lib or our headquarters which then fills the request.

*At Xxxxx we have two libraries with two Docline IDs and one general library email address. These days all emails come to it from other libraries. Staff at each library have access to it and work together to keep it “cleaned out” and the articles routed on to patrons. We request articles for staff as they come to each library (also requests from patrons come to the library inbox too and my staff work it out). Luckily, I don’t have to do much with it, unless one of them is out on vacation. I feel very fortunate. All our e-journals are billed to us as system subscriptions, so there seems to be no conflict of interest is using them to fill requests. We pay through the nose and then some for these titles, institution wide…meaning all our hospitals.

*We are a 5 hospital system with a staffed library in 3 of the 5 hospitals. Two of the staffed libraries are “one person” staff.  We also have separate Docline accounts so that each librarian takes care of local requests.  Recently we have seen a drop in the numbers of ILLs with one hospital doing virtually none and one doing less than 20 this year.  We have considered centralizing ILL activity but since ILLs have dropped significantly, it really is not a burden and, I think, the site Librarians enjoy the positive effects of delivering to their local users.  We have dropped subscriptions but I do not think that is the reason we have less ILL requests from our staff. We’ve thought a lot about this and our “top ten” list includes:

UpToDate

CINAHL with Fulltext

Increased use of only the abstract

Less time for articles

Our residents have access to the Medical School collection online UpToDate again.

*We are part of a large library system, with our journal subscriptions largely electronic and joint.  ILLs are done by each library separately, and we have different policies for them.  If you want more information, pleas call me.

*We have 3 libraries in our system. Two that have more than 250 journal titles. And, the other library is probably smaller, but I don’t know what their collection size is. We do share online materials. We take whatever comes to us in interlibrary loan requests. Other than sharing our online collection, our libraries are very separate, and I have no idea what the other library’s stats are.This started us talking about whether our online collection is listed in Docline, and it is not. It appears that with a particular title you have to select print or online and much of our online collection is also available in our library in print.

*We’re not big lenders anymore, although we once were.

We filled just under 500 requests last year.  We currently have 2 staff people. We’re adding a 3rd librarian next month.

Although the larger library has most of the print collection, the smaller library has a more unique collection – it specializes in orthopedics and has ortho titles dating back to the 1960s. The copying is more evenly distributed than you’d think but I don’t have exact numbers readily available for you.

We consolidated our three docline accounts into one about 10 years ago.

At that time, we had an ILL tech (who also was the circulation desk attendant at the largest library).  I did the updating of our holdings on Docline, but the tech handled the day-to-day ILL routine.  I think at the time, the idea was to move ILL onto the tech person and away from the librarians, since the smaller two libraries were both one-person libraries.  Sadly, the tech position was cut shortly after we made the switch. I’ve been doing ILL ever since. We’ve always equally divided literature searches, and reference, etc, but we each then specialize in some things that are not shared – I have ILL, acquisitions, cataloging, serials and e-resource management for all sites, even though I’m based at the smallest library.  The other librarian, the manager, besides the “management” stuff, is very involved in clinical librarianship, hand-held device support, and editing/manuscript preparation activities. We consolidated our 3 (now 2) libraries into 1 docline account based atthe largest library.  The serial holdings for that one docline account actually include all 3 libraries; it took a certain amount of editing of the serial holdings to get everything straight.

The requests all come to one person, who passes them onto the other library as appropriate.  The copies are scanned & e-mailed back to the main ILL person for her to send out in whatever format is necessary.

*I also have a share of ejournals.  And in my case, whoever the request goes, then the recipient of the request fills it.  If the system throws the request to my library, then I fill it even if the article comes from a shared journal.

Jan Haley, MLS

This is what I came up with:

1.

The Medical Staff Library is open 24/7-365 and provides the current information for each specialty and occupational group represented in the hospital.  Our book collection includes more than 1,000 titles in print format and over to 40 titles of books in electronic format through AccessMedicine, Nursing Reference Center, Ovid and STAT!Ref.  Our periodical collection includes more than 80 titles in print format and many other titles in electronic format through various vendors.  The Medical Library provides immediate access to current information through online databases and the internet.

2.

Knowledge-based information resources can also be called interlibrary loans. The Medical Staff Library is part of the Basic Health Sciences Library Network (BHSL), which is a network of health science libraries and college libraries within the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) whose goal is to increase free reciprocal interlibrary loans beyond the boundaries of state lines.   The library is also a member of FreeShare.  FreeShare is a cross-regional DOCLINE Library Group whose members agree to fill DOCLINE requests free of charge on a reciprocal basis and are located within the United States, Canada and US Territories.  

Original request:
I was wondering if anyone has written a brief statement for the library’s compliance with HIPAA.  I am having trouble writing a brief statement on the the arrangements we have and how to state it.   If you have written one, could you please send me a copy of it.   Thanks!   have a nice weekend.  

IM.03.01.01 Knowledge based information resources are available, current, and authoritative.

Thanks for all the responses to my questions below.. All the comments and advice  are really helpful and great! It seems that there are many who are in my situation and interested in what others are doing.

Subscription vendors:    Do you purchase e-journals through several services such as Ovid, Journal Consult, Ebsco or publishers based on your need assessment?

                                 Or Do you purchase most of them from one (a couple) vendor?

**Most of them use several vendors to purchase e-journals such as Ovid, Journal Consult, publishers or EBSCO

Access on Intranet      :        Do you  make a in-house AZ list (by yourself) on your Intranet that links to each journal’s website?            

                        ** For those who do have a management software,  Spreadsheet e-journal list that has “Jumpstart” links and PubMed Linkout are used                     Do you use online management software such as A to Z list, Serial Solution 360,TDNet? (for your small collection).

**EBSCO AZ list are the most popular software. TDNet, Serial Solution 360, Basch are used by some. 

Staff time:              How much time do you usually spend to update and maintain e-resources?

** Once a management module is set up or they don’t spend much. But the staff time varies: 4-5hours/m, 2-5h/w.

** Even though the creation of a manual AZ list takes much time, it doesn’t take much time to update.

Here are the summaries of the responses.

I thought I would reply to you since we have about 60 titles that are either online only or print + online.  We use EBSCO as our subscription vendor and this time of year we also go through the renewal process.  My rep at EBSCO checks on pricing for the online only or print +online for titles that I specify.  Some of them she can get pricing for, but then others that are OVID or Journals Consult, she asks me to get pricing since I can get the prices quicker than she can.  However, if I decide to subscribe to an OVID or Journals Consult title, my EBSCO rep handles the subscriptions seamlessly for me. 

We use EBSCO’s AtoZ product and although OVID or Journals Consult supplies a link, EBSCO puts it all onto AtoZ with a link for my users to access the journal.  Since we also subscribe to some of EBSCO’s databases, they show up as ‘linked to fulltext’ in search results also.

We pay about $1500, but of course it goes up a little each year (EBSCO service charge).  We are just over 500 beds with 5000 employees, I don’t know how many FTEs.  That 5000 includes part time too.  OVID and JournalsConsult supply a ‘jump start’ link to the journal and this can be implemented into AtoZ for that title, I don’t do it though, EBSCO does it for me.  EBSCO also offers a linking product, which I didn’t buy called LinkSource.  I’m attaching the web addresses for more information for both AtoZ and LinkSource:

AtoZ:

http://www2.ebsco.com/en-us/ProductsServices/atoz/Pages/index.aspx

LinkSource:

http://www2.ebsco.com/en-us/ProductsServices/linksource/Pages/index.aspx

We are a two person Library here, but I am the only one who manages the subscriptions.  The most time I spend on this is at the beginning of the new calendar year to activate new titles that we have online access to and occasionally through the year too, but I’d say on a monthly basis it averages 5-10% of my time. 

Oh, my, you are embarking on an exciting journey…

 The other factor you have to consider is how to let your users know about the journals — I am in the process of adding little signs under my print titles to alert them about what is available online, and especially if the title is now online only.

 Also, you will need to offer some method of showing them the tables of contents or helping them set up an alerting service if they were regular readers. That is something I have not done a good job of yet even though I had an intern who developed a process using GoogleReader and TicTocs. It is moving what was volunteer work onto me if I start sending out digital TOCs.

I use EBSCO for most of my online content, especially if I buy the print plus online version.

However, I am now buying direct from 3 vendors: OVID, Elsevier and Springer. It might be worth it to just use EBSCO to purchase those, too, because then they will handle much of the online access setup and maintenance for you.

 OVID apparently has different pricing based on whether you also subscribe to print (but it still may equal the cost of print). With OVID you also have to pay an annual user fee in addition to whatever you pay for the titles themselves. If you buy 3 OVID user spots that does not mean you would have 3 spots on say, Spine, it means 3 people could get onto the OVID platform at one time but they would all need to be using different journals — unless you pay for additional user spots on particular titles.

 The online vendors you buy from directly also force you to sign a license that you won’t share articles online for interlibrary loan. So you are back to loaning by printing, then scanning or mailing — unless you happen to also have purchased a “secure” system like Ariel. And you have to keep track of which titles are restricted, thus another list or a note on the sign under the print titles!

 I am using EBSCO A to Z and like it. It handles much of the content, especially if you purchase it through them. However, you still have to go in and set up any that you purchase directly. You should figure out how to download the spreadsheet and make your updates there so you can add notes, too. I have not quite figured that out yet. I have my own website on the hospital intranet so I just added a link there. Before that I had a chart I kept updated, so I really appreciate the A to Z service.

 You will want to set up LinkOut in PubMed so if they search MEDLINE that way they will see your icon (so you need to get an icon designed). EBSCO can upload this information for you for the titles it handles, a nice service.

 I do not have any outside access though. That is probably something we’ll need to buy eventually as people want to be able to not only search from home but also access our content.

 Here is a website where I gather TOC thoughts and it is open to anyone to add ideas.

 http://toctalk.wetpaint.com/

 I just bought this book but have not read it yet:

Managing electronic resources: new and changing roles for libraries. Peter Webster. c2008.

Helen–I’m jointly teaching a class this fall on building an electronic collection.  I wrote an article about the switch from print to electronic journals for the Journal of Hospital Librarianship.  My 2 cents for a small collection.  First explore what elec. version you have access to through your print subscriptions: examples, AMA pubs come with e access with a login and password, American Surgeon, J of Clin Oncology,Annals of Internal Med, Am J of Resp & Critical Care.

So you may already have access to some electronic journals.  Now for purchasing others.  Some of the electronic versions are virtually the same cost as the print so switching from electronic to print wouldn’t mean an increase.  Blackwell titles used to be really affordable.  You can order many of these through your subscription vendor one by one.

Purchasing through Ovid, EBSCO, etc.  First, be very careful with EBSCO’s packages as they seem to include a lot but many are free anyway and some of the most desired titles come with an “embargo” meaning you have to wait 6 mos to a year before getting access to an issue.  Ovid doesn’t do that.  Be sure to check out the agreements for “perpetual access”.  If you stop your subscription do you still have the right to access the years you bought?

Next, check what consortia are in your area.  It is VERY much more reasonable to share subscriptions to packages of titles (even if it includes some you might not necessarily want) than buying titles individually and especially when a journal package is shared between libraries.  I get my journals at a substantial discount through the Health Science Librarians of Illinois (our state wide group).  In the Midwest there are a couple of consortia.  I’m not sure about Utah, however.  Check around your state and region.  Ask the National Network of LM folks in your region.

Next A to Z list.  There are several ways this can be done.  For just 30 or so titles you can easily do your own list.  You could take a list of your print holdings and incorporate links to the fulltext.  Its not easy to build the list but not especially hard either.  Just time consuming.  The software management folks like Serials Solution (I get a discounted price through a public library consortia I belong to also) still costs around $1000.  For this few titles I might try to build my own.  (Do you have an online catalog?  Maybe through that??)  You can use Word or Excel and incorporate a link in the list.  The web address of the journal is very long but the vendor can tell you how to build them. Ovid calls these “jumpstarts” and provides a list of how to link to the table of contents of each journal.  So for example, http://ovidsp.tx.ovid.com/ovidweb.cgi?QS2=…. and it goes on and on.  You can go to the table of contents for each journal you own in ovid and click a button to have them email you the “jumpstart”.  Then you cut and paste that long address into a link in your list and have it display as Journals at Ovid  or similar.

Once you’ve set up the list you only need to update it when a title changes hands from one publisher to another or if you add or drop a subscription.  Building it does take some time. 

we have about 70 journals online which are available on our hospital intranet. Currently we use  Basch as our journal vendor and they handle the online access for all of our subscribed journals. They set up the accounts and when there is a problem I call them and it is resolved quickly. They provide a generic user id and password for our users who log into their program and get a list of journals, alphabetically. 99% of them are set up as IP address authenticated, so there is not a log in process once  you log into Basch.

 For journals we can get electronically through MD Consult, etc. I have links to those on our intranet too, on our medical library page. I manage those links, just updating when there are bad or broken links. I do have problems with MDConsult, not sure it if is me or them and as a result and checking their links monthly.

 I don’t really spend all that much time checking and making corrections, maybe 4-5 hours a month, if that.

As a small hospital library this is an issue.  I have switched several titles to online access only. The switch is made based on the library budget. Normally titles are only switched to online if they are <100 compared to the cost of the journal in print. If the cost is >100 compared to print then we keep it in print.  Most journals available through OVID and Science Direct far exceed the budget rules.

For management, we do not have A-Z or any similar item. PubMed Linkout is what we use to provide links to the articles.When possible I try to get all journals as IP recognized. If I cannot then I put the information in PubMed Linkout and people know to call for the password. You can even put a message on your PubMed Linkout icon telling people to call for passwords. We also have an online catalog that lists all of our titles (Print & online). You could build an online catalog through an excel spreadsheet, Microsoft Access, or something else and place it as a webpage on your library website.

Finally, our journal vendor (BASCH) provides the option to list all of our electronic journals on a website that is IP recognized and if the journal requires a password then the website provides it. The problem is I cannot link this into PubMed without using some form of outside tool, which we are not able to do at this point. The resource is nice but I just haven’t figured out how to integrate it yet.

We definitely have more than 30 online journals, however, some of these answers may be of use to you.

 Management systems such as EBSCO AtoZ and TDNet are able to manage both your online and print holdings, therefore providing one area for your patrons to look in.  In addition, you could enter your e-books, too.  I know EBSCO maintains many of our links once we have all our license agreements signed and activated.   That said, it may take some time in the beginning to read and comply with the licenses, and set up the program, but once done we usually spend an hour per week, when needed, in maintenance.  We presently use EBSCO’s A-Z.

 As for e-journals, we used to purchase many via databases, however, recently we found that avoiding the third party vendor and going right to the publishers has save us money and sometimes we have better access (e.g. ahead of print) than within databases.

We use EBSCO for our print subscriptions.  We purchase journal packages from OVID and a few single titles not in packages.  We also purchase several titles in e-format from Elsevier using their Science Direct platform.  We get other e-journals through our subscriptions to MD Consult and Nursing Consult.  I could get everything through EBSCO, but they would charge me a 3% fee and I can use that money to buy more.  I also get some journals through the publisher and they are less expensive than using EBSCO.  Nature & U of Chicago are two.  It does take some more work, but I keep good records of what comes from where.

I tried making my own list of e-journals, but it got to be too much to maintain.  We use EBSCO’s A-Z and list our print journals as well, as journals we can access through CINAHL, Medline w/Full Text, etc.  It is just so much easier than trying to maintain the list ourselves.

I spend 2-5 hours a week on maintenance.  We moved from Serials Solutions to A-Z (saved some money) this year and it has taken a while to get everything entered again.

 We have about 100 print subscriptions, down from a high of 190.  However, some of the 100 are also available in electronic form, but it is less expensive to get print + online sometimes.

I purchased some e-journals through OVID but most thru EBSCO Subscription Service.  I use EBSCO’s AtoZ list. I usually correct or update as I’m aware of a need to fix and it usually doesn’t take very much time to update the 30 or so individual e-journals I get thru EBSCO or OVID.   I also include ejournals I get with the packages like MDConsult into our OPAC and that usually takes about a whole morning or afternoon of one day because you have to individually add the link to the MARC records.   

Many of our ejournals are available fulltext in OVID’s core collection and CINAHL fulltext. For other titles, we began by subscribing to ejournals only via OVID but their pricing increases have driven us to go either directly to the journal publisher or to look at Ebsco.  We use Ebsco’s A-Z. 

Once we got A-Z setup, the staff time spent is minimal. 

I’ve worked with a small hospital library here in Anchorage – they have converted most of their titles to ejournals and chose to buy the Ebsco A-Z journal resolver.  That way they could also enter the titles that come with the Ebsco databases.  I have no idea what their cost was, but it does seem to be working for them.

Our hospital has 616 beds.  We currently subscribe to 68 journals in print through Ebsco, plus several Ebsco and Ovid electronic packages.  Some of our print journals are “print+online” which are billed through Ebsco, and we have several individual online-only titles which are billed through Ovid.  I’ll have to cut our print journals in half next year and drastically cut down on our electronic packages due to severe budget constraints.  Our primary online access point is through Ebsco’s “Electronic Journals A-to-Z” which I absolutely love.  It is very easy to link our Ebsco and Ovid packages, as well as individual titles and many Open Access sources via A-to-Z, and it’s very easy to make changes on this platform.  I spend a minimal amount of time on e-resource maintenance, primarily at renewal time.

I did that a few years ago.  I had already dropped print for MD Consult core titles.  I created a spreadsheet of the titles I wanted and compared prices for Print+Online from each publisher (via my subscription service), ILL (mainly CCC royalties, since they’d be coming from reciprocal lenders), Ovid, and ProQuest (for PQ I divided the cost of each package by the number of wanted journals in that package).  I have since added Nursing Consult and some selections from Journals Consult.

Currently I have all of them (and my print holdings) in an Excel spreadsheet which I post on our intranet, complete with URLs.  I also use PubMed LinkOut, and have placed links to the issue list for each title (well, to PQ’s publication list for those 800) in CINAHL.   I’d _like_ to get SS, TDI, or Ebsco A to Z as a temporary measure until somebody in IS has time to help me get an ILS with their functions.

In 2009 I spent 83 hours on journals, probably mostly on e-journal maintenance, and 55 hours on other e-resource management.

I haven’t done this.  The journal titles will only be available through a certain source/publisher.  For example:  Ovid is owned by Wolters Kluwer/ Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.  MD Consult is an Elsevier (Saunders, Mosby) product.  I don’t quite remember Journal Consult but it sounds as though it might be Elsevier.  An academic

Librarian advised me to buy packages of journals rather than a la carte.  She said it would be more affordable. The library she works in and several other academic institutions group purchased an Elsevier package.  I asked Elsevier about packages.  They said they don’t offer packages to medical libraries.  My library is in a hospital.  EBSCO is an aggregator.  EBSCO doesn’t publish journals but must get permission from publishers to allow online access.

For me print is very expensive and online is more expensive.  Some of my institutional subscription print journals have online access.  However, the online access may only be for the librarian.  For a few titles I have purchased both institutional print and online access.

I have thought about listing the journals with institutional online access under the library on our institutional intranet .

We use Serials Solutions 360 Core.  It is set up as a one-stop place to go for accessing full-text journals from several full-text databases that we have from EBSCO and Gale, Ovid full-text journals, individual titles that we are registered for access, and any others that we are able to access.  The links usually guide the user to the year needed, then the issue of the article sought.  We call it our E-Journal Portal, and the link is provided on the library’s page on the Intranet, which can only be accessed by hospital employees and physicians.

Helen,  We have a small online collection that includes titles from OVID, 2 packages- one clinical, one nursing, and also some direct from publisher titles.  We actually started with the OVID collections and only this year cancelled the print version if it was part of the collection.  We also have some direct with publisher subscriptions for things like NEJM, BMJ, JAMA, and then also have the online if it’s included with the print. 

I looked into A-Z list products, and our consortium also investigated several of the journal management products, such as Serials solutions, EOS, etc.  Most were more expensive ( $2,000 – $7,000) than I felt I could justify for my small collection.   For now we are using an in-house created Excel spreadsheet with hot links to the journals and listing of years of coverage.  We do have it on our Intranet, but it’s much more useful for the library staff.  For the OVID journals, we have a link to OVID on our intranet, and the OVID  e-journals are all available there through an a-z list.    I know of a major hospital in the state that created their own a-z list using an Access Database.  The initial creation takes time, but the yearly update is easier.

I would be very interested in your responses. I have a small collection that I converted. We had about 130 print journal titles several years ago. Due to major budget cuts we had to make some tough decisions. I canceled all but about 20 print journals and converted to electronic journals whenever possible. We already had the LWW collection from Ovid, I purchased several individual titles from Ovid as well, i.e. some of the Archives, BMJ, JBJS and a few others. I have individual subscriptions to NEJM & Am J Gastroenterology. We also have full text journals from MD Consult & Nursing Consult. There are links to Ovid, NEJM, and MD & Nursing Consult on the hospital’s intranet. But I don’t have a good way to organize the electronic access that we get with our print subscriptions, such as to Lancet. So I really have no clue how to organize my online collection for easiest access and would be very interested in hearing what others are doing. I don’t have any online management software and can’t afford to purchase any. And I spend very little time organizing the collection because I spend very little time functioning as a Librarian any more due to reductions in departmental staffing I have taken on more functions of the education department, such as reserving rooms, signing people up for classes, etc. But we won’t even get into that! Bottom line, I could really use any assistance that you get!  

I would appreciate the summary please. We make an in-house spreadsheet that we print to locate our ejournals and have them all linked (as much as possible) into pubmed. Once per year we spend quite a bit of time checking/updating the spreadsheet and pubmed links, then forget about it. We have only 2 ejournal collections, LWW full-text (about 240 titles) and MDConsult (about 80 titles). We access a few more through the public library system in our county. We’re a really small hospital and our budget/collection is also really small. We are investigating the Resource Mate Serials Module as a possible option for online serial access, but haven’t gotten very far and I have no idea if we could link up the journal into our OPAC, which we have just started. We still order about 20 titles in print as they are cheaper than converting to e-access.

Helen, for what this is worth, we have about 90 e-titles, up 24/7 for staff via our intranet.  We don’t use an A-Z service, but keep our PubMed linkout links up to date and have a list of the titles with links to the full text (with dates of holdings available) as a page on our intranet. 

Re: where to license them from, if you can go directly through the publisher it works well.  You have to license Lippincott from OVID I think, and Elsevier from Science Direct / Journals Consult.

Once things are set up, it doesn’t seem to take much time.  Check the links annually at least, but your patrons will tell you when something isn’t working!

Below are the summaries sent by Karen who is a hospital librarian in Ontario.

I was wondering about some of the same issues, specifically e-journal packages..  I sent out the question to CANMEDLIB and here are the responses I got back.

I would be very interested in the responses you get.

Thank you to all who responded to my question about electronic journal packages.  Some libraries are contemplating the switch to the “electronic side”, and many more are interested in further exploring this topic.

This is a topic I have struggled with, because I see the library not only as a place, but also as a place where staff come to browse through the journals.  It would take time for staff, as well as library staff, to make the mind switch, but I see the potential cost savings as well as increased access to library resources for our hospital and community staff.

Here is a list of packages/services that libraries responded they are using:

EBSCO’s Medline with Full text
EBSCO’s CINAHL with Full text
Ebsco’s Biomedical Collection
EBSCO’s Health Business Elite
Ebsco A to Z
MDConsult,
StatRef; 
e-Therapeutics
Micromedex
Cochrane Library
BMJ collection
JAMA and Archives Collection
Wiley Blackwell Medicine Nursing Collection
Elsevier Science Direct

Here are the comments that I received:

We have arranged an automatic login so once members have logged into the website they (in theory) don’t need to login for each resource.

We have had a significant cut to our subscriptions budget line, this year and have also lost a full time Librarian. Due to these circumstances I have recently concluded that we will need to continue primarily with the electronic journal packages, and reduce our individual print + online or online only singular titles. This will reduce the administrative time of maintaining title by title, and will continue with our strategic move to encourage online access to our users.

The packages that we have had until now have been considered to be adjunct to our main collection, but down the road I now see these as being the main part of our Library journal collection. One great package that we’ve had for some time now is the EBSCO Biomedical Collection.  It is now or soon to be replaced with an improved version in combination with the EBSCO MEDLINE. It has many valuable titles and is easy to administer.

I’m using Ebsco’s A to Z.  I’m quite satisfied with it, particularly how easy it is to set up and maintain.

In recent years this has come up many times with new staff who are more user friendly when it comes to electronic journals.  Like you I have a few electronic journals that I also have the print copies for, but most of my journals are hard copy.  There is a growing trend in libraries to have electronic collections, but because of small budgets etc., this isn’t always possible.

I decided to go this route as well, and am starting a drawn out analysis of our current subscriptions, and how I can stop ordering title by title.

I started investigating a software program a couple of years ago and then got busy and didn’t get back to it. The program is called Shibboleth. It’s an “open source software package for web single sign-on across or within organizational boundaries”. I didn’t get into it that far, but I think it might work with journal access.   I try to get our e-journal access via IP recognition. It works well, unless IT decides to change our IP address without notification.

FYI, I also attach the summaries of the responses to Tonia Harris’ inquiry about “e-journal management vendors” made on Listserv in Feb,2008.

I am looking into vendors who have e-journal management programs such what TDNet has (www.tdnet.com).  In getting electronic journals registered and I have developed a spreadsheet with userid’s and passwords and in the case of IP authentication, then just the web address.  However my users don’t find this the most user friendly way to access e-journals.  I have the EBSCOHost package and those are separate databases of course.  Do any of you have an e-journal management program that you use and cost of it? 

In may haste in getting out the previous email, I failed to mention that we have EBSCO’s A to Z and EJS products.  What I’m looking for is a single site login, regardless of what electronic databases or electronic journal vendors the library subscribes to, for users to access onsite or remote.  I have talked with EBSCO and my rep there told me the have no such product and they are asked this question all the time.  I understand there is a way to add notes to A to Z and my rep will show me how, if I don’t find an e-journal management product in the meantime. 

EBSCO’s A to Z and EJS products

(http://www2.ebsco.com/en-us/ProductsServices/atoz/Pages/index.aspx) our users like it.  It is a little time consuming to setup, but well worth it.  If you purchase your online journal through EBSCO then EBSCO will automatically update your holdings in A-to-Z. The cost is based on the number of entries you have in the system. Several mentioned a price of $1000. 

Athens by Eduserv: Classic Athens is a username/password system that allows an organisation to issue each member of the organization with a single username to access their entire collection. Athens is independent of IP, so usernames can be used anywhere anytime. Please note that Athens does not of itself provide access to vendor sites – it is necessary to also have a subscription to that vendor’s material.

Classic Athens has comprehensive user management capability – designed for librarians – with the ability to bulk upload lists of students from Registry, say, or to self register individuals validated by IP or other defined criteria. Users can be categorised by role, or location, whatever and allocated different sets of resources. The comprehensive statistics package allows the librarian to produce access statistics by category, by resource or overall.

Athens also comes with a free portal MyAthens that provides lists of resources and access URLs. It also allows librarians to create panels of their choice to be made available to their users under access control.

The panel editor provides a simple interface to allow HTML to be created perhaps by cut and pasting Word documents.

For an objective view of Athens, see the Krafty Librarian’s views on Athens at Main Krafty Athens Blog http://kraftylibrarian.com/2006/09/athens-and-off-campus-access-to.html

Athens can also be used to integrate with a local authentication system, say an LDAP, in Local Authentication mode. In this scenario, Athens does not hold the usernames, local usernames are used. Athens still provides the ability to categorise users and to produce statistics for resource access based on those categories. See http://www.athensams.net/local_auth

More information is available in the Getting Started Guide at http://www.athensams.net/upload/resources/pdf/athens/getting_started.pdf

Prices for Athens start at $1500 per year for up to 1000 users. We are currently offering free 90 day trials of Athens, to allow you to see how Athens might work in your environment.

Athens is a proxy server allowing us to offer remote authenticated access to our online resources. This bypasses the need for usernames and passwords for individual sites. Each patron registers and is given a “universal” password to get into everything you’ve set up. We love it and our patrons love it. Athens enables users with one password to access all the electronic resources whether they are on or off campus.

If publisher accepts Athens, all you have to do it give them your Athens ID number or tell your representative.  Then you will get an email that says you can cascade this resource to all your users.  It is easy to do.

For the ones which are not Athens, they have a proxy set up with 100 titles. They are listed at http://www.athensams.net/allresources.php

This is for an additional fee.

For the ones that don’t have Athens, sometimes Athens can get them on board.  Otherwise, you have to do it manually like you have done.

Contact info: Lyn Norris lyn.norris@eduserv.org.uk (she is located in New Zealand)

Basch’s Boss product: I believe Basch has this with their BOSS system. 

http://www.basch.com/index.asp?page=linking

EZProxy by OCLC: an authentication system that will get your users to all your e-resources with one logon.  We use EZProxy, http://www.usefulutilities.com/, which was recently purchased by OCLC.

When we purchased it, the cost was only $595.

TDNet:  I think it is a flat rate for a certain number of titles about

$7 per title.

We think it is worth it for us – our own in-house system was taking up about 50% of one staff and 20% of another to maintain it and it would take almost 2 months (Jan.-Feb each year) to get it all updated.  Now it still takes time to make the changes that one must make each year after journal and contract renewals but it is much, much less time and the product is far superior to what we had created in-house. 

TDNet also permits aggregating journal collections by library and since we have 3 libraries in our system, we can all be in there together yet each library and any customer can sort out titles (esp. good for print) by library. And each journal record can identify the print location of the print titles and the source of the online access. We centralize the tech work on it – one systems librarian handles the updates and is the liaison with the company. 

It works well and the software permits us to do our own updates and corrections. We have over 700 titles in TDNet now and the fact that it also links to our library catalog allows us to retrieve print journal information also.

Contact person is Ronna Archbald (978)660-1537

Ovid Linksolver: We have recently begun using Ovid LinkSolver http://www.linksolver.com/site/index.jsp.  I do not have much experience with it yet as this project was handed to me by a retiring colleague.

Also: See

http://www.ovid.com/site/products/tools/ovid/linksolver.jsp?top=2&mid=3&

bottom=8&subsection=15

Serials Solutions 360 that PALINET offered at a discount to members. You can join Palinet as a hospital library at a reduced rate of $450 I think. Call Palinet. Serials Solutions cost was dependent upon how many titles you have with a max cap annually of $4,000. See:

http://www.palinet.org/lps_products_detail.aspx?ProdID=1754  We LOVED IT!!  It worked well with aggregate packages like EBSCO’s, as well as Lexis that we have an some Ovid packages..  as well as any e-serial you purchased directly with IP or password. Took a bit of learning but once you had it was very nice. It resolved any link changes, you never needed to worry about them AND it linked to all the free online journals you selected (by subject, like government titles) which was important to us as an association library–  like Health Care Financing Review, CPI etc.

With Palinet merging with SOLINET, perhaps you are a member of latter or the hospital membership will be a SOLINET offer too? Something to ask!

Proquest Serials Solutions: Users love it.  Cost, however, is based on number of titles tracked.  Essentially, you let them know what databases you have (e.g., MDConsult, OCLC Firstsearch, OVID Cinahl,

whatever) and they give you a quote.  Very similar to Ebsco A-Z service.

Serials Solutions has recently announced a new service to do same thing with e-books.  Here is contact info:

Client Center Contact: Nancy Roberts nancy@serialssolutions.com Sales

Rep: Don Litner Email: don.litner@serialssolutions.com

     Address: 501 N. 34th St., Suite 400, Seattle, WA 98103-8645

     Ph: 866-737-4257 ext. 1064 or 248-207-0384 (cell phone)

     Fax: 206-525-9066 

I hope this helps others who are looking into a product for e-journal management.

Recently I posted to this list enquiring about natural medicine/herbal resources.  Thanks to all who replied.  Responses are summarized below; the number in parentheses beside the resource is the number of times it was recommended.  URLs and comments are provided if supplied by the responder.

Online Resources:

Natural Standard  (10)

http://www.naturalstandard.com

Comments: “Love the evidence based grading”; “LOVE it”; “more comprehensive and evidence-based than others and isn’t terribly expensive”; “more robust but costs more”; “more comprehensive and evidence-based than others and isn’t terribly expensive”.

Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database (4) 

Comments: “Cost effective”‘; “my pharmacists like it, print or online is pretty cheap, we have a site license but also buy the print”; “really popular with our staff”.

Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s Web Site “About Herbs, Botanicals & Other Products” (3)

http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/11570.cfm

Comments: “Points you to other resources”

Review of Natural Products — Facts & Comparisons/Wolters Kluwer  (2)

MedlinePlus Herbs and Supplements (2)

Comments: “Gets info from the best — Natural Standard; and updates ANNUALLY.  Makes it a no brainer.”

National Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine – National Institutes of Health (1)

http://nccam.nih.gov/

University of Pittsburgh – databases for alternative health (1)

http://www.pitt.edu/~cbw/database.html

University of Pittsburgh links to herbal resources online (1)

http://www.pitt.edu/~cbw/herb.html

NIH Office of Dietary Supplements (1)

http://ods.od.nih.gov/

Natural Standard Integrative Medicine  (1)

University of Maryland Complementary and Alternative Medicine Index  (1)

http://www.umm.edu/altmet

Comments: “Extremely evidence-based; references at bottom show where info was retrieved”

Print Resources:

Herbal Medicines by Joanne Barnes 3^rd edition (2007); ISBN: 0853696233  (1)

Review of Natural Products (1)

Comments: “In serial form – a binder with reports”

ACP Evidence-Based guide to complementary & alternative medicine (1)

5-Minute herb & dietary supplement consult (1)

PDR for Herbal Medicines – print (1)

Part 1 of my workshop on creating a blog dealt with the what & why’s of creating a blog.  Part 2 is a cookbook type approach on how to create a blog using WordPress:  http://www.slideshare.net/judykammerer/8-12-08-creating-a-blog-power-point-part2-presentation

I will create a separate page & Power Point link to ”Creating a Blog with WordPress – Part 2″ for my 2-page handout.

The hospital library also has 1 computer connected by DSL to the internet which can be used by patients, their families, and nursing students.  Since the library’s web page cannot be read outside of the Community Forum intranet, I am planning to set up a separate blog for patients and their families and will put an icon on that computer’s desktop for a direct link.  Since RSS feeds are person-specific, I will probably just post a how-to page on setting up a feed reader and include a MedlinePlus RSS feed as an example.