After introductory remarks, etc. Ed Pentz, one of their technical people, talked about IDEAL Phase 2 which is to be implemented this summer (June 1997). Highest on the list is stable URLs. Also coming is administrative statistics, and site-capable administration of users. (This last would be if we wanted to register and unregister individual users ourselves.) They also plan to more fully implement their mirror sites and set up more of them. It is possible that they will add some of their book series to the system, not under the APPEAL license pricing, and more journals in 1998.
Alternative SGML formatting is under planning, and also the possibility of installing supplementary information not available in print. Finally, they plan to create dynamic linking between and among article references, and possibly extend them out to abstracting and indexing services, and allow links back from those services.
Several institutions present (one from Los Alamos in particular) complained about the delay between arrival of the print and appearance of the electronic version online. Academic stated this is a top priority of theirs, but that various glitches in the system (downtimes, etc.) that have affected us, have also affected getting articles into IDEAL. At their APnet site, they have a couple of tables called GoLive and Mail Dates which list when articles appear on IDEAL and when the issues are mailed respectively.
They plan to merge the tables and keep them updated more frequently, so that we know how they are doing in this area and also so that they have a strong incentive to improve.
Discussion went on to the various downtimes, and file unavailabilities that have been recurring since the system went live. They are urgently working with the Fujitsu programers to apply patches and revisions to the database that will improve the performance and eventually make it solid. The phrase Ed Pentz used was patches to prevent the "page demon falling over." One improvement that was suggested and they said they will followup on promptly would be to get a technical contact for each group to whom they could report progress on these technical system problems and patches and revisions.
Another future improvement they mentioned was providing abstracts in advance of publication and email Table-of-Contents notifications to end-users also in advance of publication.
To return to the stable URL upgrade in June: They plan to have the capability for masking the dynamic URLs with stable "cover" URLs. These URLs will allow for entry into different levels of the database, from one that will lead to a journal level, to others that will go directly to a particular year of a journal, to another level that through both the SICI and digital object identifier codes will lead directly to an article. This last will enable linking directly to an article from an abstracting and indexing service that is compliant with SICI or DOI.
A rep from another institution asked if there were plans to maintain multiple versions of the articles (ASCII, PDF, SGML) for a transition period to accomodate those sites that use LYNX. Academic said that it was something they could probably do.
For those who have paid for or want them, the 1996 back-CD-ROMs for 1996 are to be available later this week. Of less interest to us, they are making header files with the indexing information available via ftp to abstracting and indexing services.
Another question from the audience inquired about new capabilities of pdf servers that allow from threading of pages (one page at a time, reducing download time). Academic is investigating but PDF Mark is still in beta test mode.
Help files are up now, and can be commented upon. They want suggestions for improvement.
The discussion turned to roll-out/PR programs for announcing the availability of IDEAL. They have bookmarks, posters and fliers for institutions that want to use these methods of dissemination to users.
Other places talked about email announcements, and cocktail parties.
In terms of awareness and training somone suggested that Academic should make available the CD-ROM that they had at their exhibit booth which basically plays a demo loop over and over.
Usage statistics will be part of phase 2, but we can at present request some aggregate stats: number of sessions at site by month. To do so, we need to contact Bruce Washburn. At this point, they are uncertain what statistics they can or will offer in June as part of phase 2, so we should keep our suggestions rolling their way. I left Medical's detailed suggestions regarding usage stats with them.
The final topic on the agenda was the APPEAL license, and we began by talking about the pricing and invoicing mass confusion. Academic had little idea that there would be institutions like ours that at least for the first few years would need the electronic package delineated out by journal.
Because of auditing problems, those institutions and units that paid the full print price to their vendors will be refunded the full amount, and then billed for the reduced print price and issued a separate electronic invoice.
There was some indication that they might move away from the consortial approach, and toward subscription agents as "consortia leaders". Along with this was the possibility that they will simply make all ejournals available in the plan without regard for the need to have a large enough consortia that each title is at least covered in one place.
Right at the end, the question of ILL needs was raised again. Academic's response to this was *not* promising. They were taking the stance that because they are intending to have some "cheap" pricing for small institutions (a couple of thousand dollars for the e versions) that there should be no place that couldn't afford to buy the e versions if they wanted to, so ILL wasn't needed. Efforts to disabuse them of this idea didn't seem to take very well, but we can and should continue to push them on this point.
Please ask if you have questions about any of the above.
Kimberly Parker
Chemistry Librarian
Sterling Chemistry Library
Yale University
225 Prospect Street/P.O. Box 208107
New Haven, CT 06520-8107
voice: (203) 432-3960
fax: (203) 432-3049
kimberly.parker@yale.edu
Bonnie Turner
last updated May 14, 1997
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