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Karen Butter is at
the UCSF Library and Center for
Knowledge Management,
530 Parnassus Avenue,
San Francisco,
CA 94143-840, USA.
E-mail: kab@
library.ucsf.edu
414
The library in the digital age
Karen Butter
Electronic publication is an increasingly popular forum within the
scientific community, and many are talking about the possibility of
dispensing with paper publications entirely in years to come. How
likely is this to happen, and if so how quickly? What will be its
impact on the way we use and contribute to the scientific knowledge
base? This article discusses the elements of today’s digital library and
how they might evolve as we confront the online world.
The Internet is growing at a rapid pace. In mid-l 997, there were an estimated 16 million Internet-connected com- puters and more than 100 million users’. The World Wide Web (WWW) and multimedia technologies are central to this explosive growth. The World Wide Web makes distribution and access to information remarkably easy even for those who are not com- puter literate. These technologies are having a profound impact on knowl- edge repositories. Libraries, as the tra- ditional storehouses of knowledge, are now evolving to play dual roles in the
paper-based and digital worlds. While digital libraries may begin with the foundations of today’s library, they will look very different in the future.
What is a digital library? Also called virtual or electronic librar-
ies, they are open anytime and access-
ible from any place. A broad definition of a digital library is one that provides systematic methods for collecting, stor- ing, organizing, creating and publish- ing information and knowledge in digital form. The links between digital libraries and information resources are transparent and often accomplished with the click of a mouse. Collections are not limited to books and journals and can include repositories of digital artifacts and multimedia.
The ability of a reader to interact with and manipulate information in digital libraries is very different from that allowed in a traditional library. Users of a digital library will have at their fingertips all the information associ- ated with an article. Using the Web’s hypertext language, words in an article are highlighted to show an active link. An article might create links that would permit the reader to click on a refer- ence and jump directly to the article,
click on the name of a biological pro- cess to retrieve images with motions and sound, click on a table to view supporting data and click on a gene to view the DNA sequence. An author’s electronic mail address would allow an online discussion between reader and author. The same principles would apply for a textbook, for example, where students could move easily be- tween a course syllabus, supplemen- tary readings, a session of an interview with a patient, and examinations for the course. The digital library could extend to support publishing. For example, authors could submit their articles electronically using standard word-processing programs. Special- ized software would translate the arti- cle into appropriate language for inter- nal processing/editing. Articles would then be automatically composed for electronic and paper publishing.
Experiments with digital information
Two early experimental projects at the University of California San Fran- cisco assisted in defining the basic con- cepts in a digital library. ‘Red Sage’ was a collaboration between AT&T Bell Laboratories, Springer-Verlag, New York, the University of California San Francisco and twenty other scientific and medical publishers. The shared goal was to test economic, legal, tech- nical, human factors and business issues in the distribution of scientific and medical information in a net- worked environment2. In 1992, work- ing with faculty and publishers, the library assembled a database of sev- enty journals in three carefully selected areas: radiology, molecular biology and general high impact. Limiting journals to these areas created a strong focus for the collection, encouraging regular
use by faculty and students in these disciplines. Besides testing the con- cept of electronic journals, the Red Sage experiment also evaluated the suit- ability of image quality with standard workstation configurations, and the technical issues around networked distribution of information. The pro- ject was based upNon RightPages soft- ware developed at AT&T3. Initially, it was designed for selected hardware, but a version for the WWW was re- leased in 1996, eliminating the need to load specialized software on local workstations. The use of standard software was a significant factor to increased use of the system.
Red Sage identified several desirable features of electronic journals. An auto- matic notification system allowed read- ers to set up individual ‘alerts’ based upon the journal title, subject or author. More rapid release of journals was an expectation for online journals. Both researchers and clinicians want access to the most current information, es- pecially as research grants are more competitive and health-related infor- mation from medical journals is re- ported regularly in the popular media. From the beginning, Red Sage was designed so that crucial titles were available for searching as soon as their embargo period ended. Integration with other desktop systems with fre- quently used databases, such as MED- LINE, and with related material from article references was one of the most requested functions. To partially fulfil this need, the Library released one of the first WWW-based search systems for MEDLINE in 19964. Using the
Medsage system (Fig. 1), a searcher completed a form and checked appro- priate boxes, eliminating the need to remember complex commands and terminology. While Medsage was an important tool for simplifying search and retrieval, more valuable was the linkage to full-text journal articles.
Researchers and clinicians could click a box and immediately jump to the article - greatly reducing the time required to find relevant information.
The electronic journal is here In the past year, we have witnessed a
phenomenal growth in the number of electronic journals. An archive for new journals and newsletters on the Internet announced 200 new journals in 1993. Currently, there are 3800 journals in the archive, with exponential growth occurring in new listings for 19975. Many of these are electronic replace- ments for well-established print publi- cations. Commercial publishers, such
Copyright 0 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights resewed. 0962-8924/97/X1 7.00 PII:SO962-8924(97)01135-S
trends in CELL BIOLOGY (Vol. 7) October 1997
(4 as Elsevier, Academic, Springer-Verlag, Wiley and Blackwell, offer their journals in print and digital formats. Academic and society publishers are also experi- menting with electronic distribution. The Johns Hopkins University Press
offers electronic access to its forty- plus journals, and Stanford University’s HighWire Press currently has fifteen society publications with promises of ten more in the near future.
It is increasingly common for journals that begin publishing an electronic counterpart of a print publication to move quickly to providing ‘perks’ for electronic readers. Readers receive ad- ditional material in the electronic edi- tion that is not present in the paper version. Some valuable adjuncts suited to the online environment are links to genomic, protein and crystal structures referenced in the article, data and notes from the author, and links to other databases for related information. One especially attractive implementation available in the HighWire Press publi- cations is the link to the free MEDLINE database supplied by the National Library of Medicine and the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). PubMed searches the nine million citations in MEDLINE, supple- mented by PreMedline for the most re- cent citations. With this system, search- ers will find linkages from a citation to the full-text article at WWW sites main- tained by publishers. From there, one can browse related articles, abstracts
and a wealth of valuable information. Genetic sequence linkages offer further explorations (Fig. 2). Increasingly, pub- lishers are adding animated displays
for biological, chemical and pharma- cological processes, with the possi- bility of downloading to a local work- station. Updating published articles is much easier with electronic journals, where an author may change or add text as new knowledge is uncovered.
While many predicted the rapid elimination of paper, the transition is proceeding gradually. Publication of one of the first digital-only journals in medicine, The Online journal of Current Clinical Trials, was not an overwhelm- ing success. As a pre-World Wide Web publication, access required special- ized software, and networked distri- bution was slow and cumbersome. The lack of indexing in MEDLINE dur- ing the first year of publication further
limited distribution. Today, there is increasing acceptance of electronic- only journals in a few selected subject areas, primarily in those disciplines
where individuals are well connected to the Internet. RSNA E/ectronicjouma/,
lournal of Image Guided Surgery, Gene Combis, New Astronomy and journal of Molecular Modeling are primarily digi- tal products. There are several reasons for the slow pace in the publication of new titles. Standard indexing and
abstracting sources are reluctant to accept digital-only products, which significantly reduces awareness of the publication for the reader. Digital-only journals have difficulty competing with
well-established peer-reviewed journals except in communities where many are well connected to the Internet and can use the high-speed, multimedia features of the Web. A recent survey among Chest Physicians found that 23% of its members had Internet con- nectivity6. While this is a respectable fraction, it may not be sufficient to sustain an electronic-only publication.
Limitations of the current environment
The Red Sage experiment demon- strated that readers expect speed and
reliability in computer-based systems. Small delays in accessing electronic information were unacceptable even when this was significantly less than locating a journal article on library shelves. Users of Red Sage were even willing to sacrifice image quality for speed. Of concern to many are the capacity and reliability of the Internet as more individuals are connected and information sources grow rapidly. There are plans to expand the capac- ity of the communication networks, and research continues to develop new technologies to support higher speeds for data transfer. Security is
another major concern. Publishers want to ensure that only subscribers have access to the content. Readers want access regardless of their location without having to remember complex and unique passwords for each system. Current strategies based upon com- puter addresses are easy to implement but restrict use to pre-identified com- puters. The Internet is pushing the rapid development and implemen- tation of acceptable, reliable authen- tication systems that would make access possible anytime, anywhere.
Other limitations of the Internet are in the presentation of information, difficulty in displaying mathematical symbols, and enhanced expectations concerning the speed of publication. For a reader, there are no presentation standards for electronic publications as there are for paper. Some publish- ers offer text in the standard Web language - HyperText Markup Lan- guage (HTML). Others require special
04
CltaUaslt-2O@f94)inERIEFfompt
III
FIGURE 1
Screen images from Medsage demonstrating how a reader can instantaneously move between MEDLINE al?d electronic journal articles. (a) full search; (b) result of lull search.
software, such as Adobe Acrobat, on
reader workstations, which reproduces a page as it appears in a paper jour- nal. Still others allow access only to abstracts, and the article must be ordered from the publisher. The vari- ety of implementations may eventually point out the most useful approach for presenting information electronically,
but readers today will find numerous variations. Software to translate math- ematical formulae and Greek symbols exists, although it requires special installation, restricting access for some. With electronic publications, readers
trends in CELL BIOLOGY (Vol. 7) October 1997 415
FIGURE 2
PubMed, produced by the National Library of Medicine, provides additional enhancements to a MEDLINE reference
with direct links to associated protein and DNA sequence data, related MEDLINE
articles and online journals, such as the /ournal of Biological Chemistry, for the
iournal article.
expect to find articles before they appear in paper journals or at least as soon as paper copies are delivered to
the post office. For many reasons, publishers are not yet able to deliver.
The peer-review process Some authors and editors suggest
that one of the delays in publication, peer review, might benefit from the digital environment. Peer review could change from its current prospective system to a retrospective one, reducing the lag from article submission to pub- lication. For example, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews allows readers of an electronic article to fill out a form, adding their comments7. Editors review readers comments and request responses from authors who then revise the paper. An author assumes a continuous responsibility to revise a publication, a task some authors may question. An attempt to create an online journal in physics proposed publishing both reviewed
and unreviewed papers, tagging the peer-reviewed papers8. The physics experiment also suggested eliminating editors, removing spelling and gram- mar checks, and hence reducing pub- lications costs. Others have suggested electronic preprint archives9. While this system works in physics and astronomy, its acceptance in the
other sciences is uncertain. Publishing in peer-reviewed journals also supports academic promotion and tenure, and prestige and recognition for authors. Peer review could be reformulated to be determined by ratings and votes - thus democratizing the process to the whole scientific community. To deter-
mine high-quality articles, one could choose to view only those read by a large number of individuals, although access popularity is not necessarily an indication of scientific merit. While the new technology offers an opportunity to re-engineer the process it may have unintended consequences. Unrefereed publications could contribute over- whelmingly to the volume of infor- mation, causing more frustration to busy researchers who rely on peer review for selection. Additionally, it is not certain that the scientific commu- nity is willing to adopt these changes.
Authors may not want responsibility for continuous revisions, and moving more responsibility for editing on to authors, or eliminating it entirely, may reduce the readability.
Paying for digital information One of the most difficult issues with
electronic information is the question of economics. Publishing journals elec- tronically is an investment for publish- ers. While paper and mailing costs are removed, someone must provide the technical infrastructure for distribution, the editorial and production processes, and advertising. In hallways and meet- ings, publishers, librarians and schol- arly societies engage in frequent discussions about who will pay for electronic information, at what price and under what terms and conditions. Individual subscribers maywelcome a replacement for their stacks of paper journals. In fact, some, such as the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, have ambitious plans to stop producing paper versions in order to control production costs. Subscribers to electronic journals should understand the conditions of electronic access, for example what happens if
the subscription is cancelled. In many cases, the subscriber will not have access to the information, including those years for which the subscription was valid, Another possible model offers a reduced price for electronic access to subscribers of the print edition. De- pending upon the additional cost, most budgets, personal and institutional, will not support a large increase in expenditures for subscriptions.
For institution-wide subscriptions, the issue is much more complex. As
part of the process of developing digi- tal libraries, institutions are consider- ing site licences, contracts that allow access to a defined user community. Individuals may plan to rely on li- braries for electronic access, in some cases cancelling their print subscrip- tions. This presents a difficult economic
issue for publishers who depend upon subscriptions from individuals. If the subscription base erodes, the price of the electronic copy will increase dra- matically. Funding site licences from library budgets is uncertain at best. In the past five to seven years, many libraries have not received sufficient funds to cover inflation for the current base of paper jol.rrnals. Thus, adding additional costs for electronic access will require subsc:ription cancellations
or reduction in services from other parts of the organization. Discussions about other sources of additional fund- ing include an access charge for everyone who uses the system or a replacement of subscriptions with pay- ment for articles.
Where do we go from here? Making predictions for the future is
risky. What is certain is that digital information is enlarging daily. Less cer- tain is when it might replace paper, the possible changes in scientific com- munications ancl who and how we will pay for information. Essential in creating this new environment is con- tinuing the experiments with elec- tronic journals and the development of digital libraries. By working together, scientists, librarians and publishers will answer these questions in the digital world.
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416 trends in CELL BIOLOGY (Vol. 7) October 1997