Posted by Ian Palmer on Tue, May 08, 2012 @ 10:57 PM
I've been involved in a lot of discussions recently about mobile access to scientific content via corporate libraries, about PDF annotation, and the multiple re-use scenarios for what happens after a scientific paper is legally obtained.
Knowing that nobody knows researchers better than they know themselves, I decided to take a very simple question that included these various elements to "the (virtual) streets".
I'm a member of The Scientific Journal Club on LinkedIn.com (which I highly recommend you join!) and decided recently to pose this question:
Which do you prefer for reading scientific papers?
The poll isn't yet closed, but the results are nonetheless interesting....nearly 60% stated that they still prefer paper copies for reading papers. Electronic document delivery helps to speed retrieval up, but once in hand it seems that this small focus group still prefers paper.
Maybe it is a generational bias, but maybe not. The comments that have supplemented this poll have shed some additional light on the matter. Here are a few excerpts:
- "I prefer to read PDF copies because...I can do keyword searches to find specific names, facts or figures without having to visually scan the entire document."
- "Personally, I like the tablet...Nonetheless, I will still print PDFs when I plan to do lots of underlining, arrows, remarks, etc. Up till now, no applications to do that on a computer tablet have convinced me."
- "Papers in PDF format is efficient only for searching. BUT for reading, paper copy is a unique "brain experience"...Computer screen stresses the brain, so when you read an article, you don't have the same efficiency compared to the paper one..."
- "...online papers are great when you need to use ctrl F to search for something very specific- much less time consuming... but if you need to read the entire article from end to end - paper copy is much easier on your eyes and your brain."
And this one came in as I was writing this post...
- "Online papers are good when you read only the summary / abstract. Online/pdf version looks greate when you are viewing at the graphics - in a magnified view/colour images. If you need to read the entire article and make an in depth analysis of results - paper copy will be much useful. I feel it is worth the money when you get one good idea for every cartridge."
Of course, there was a minority who have FULLY adopted the shift to electronic, but I personally remained surprised at the numbers who still prefer paper for good 'ole r-e-a-d-i-n-g as well as the fact that "Control+F" seems to be a driving part of the value proposition behind papers in PDF format.
Reprints Desk and I'm sure our library/information centre customers (at least those who support research) will continue to monitor where researchers are in this from a reality-versus-future perspective and help support all use cases.
In the meanwhile, this leads to another interesting paper-related topic: PDF annotations. There are at least two popular formats so far, which include (1) adding notes directly on the text (eg with a bookmark) and also (2) facebook-like commenting below or around the article itself as a threaded conversation -- basically, what we've used in our journal article productivity web app Bibliogo for current awareness, reference management, collaboration and more.
We're interested in seeing where both formats are used or merged, both for our own uses individually or as part of a workgroup in environments wherever this may be supported.
So what do YOU prefer and what are you seeing in your work environement? We'd like to hear from you.
Posted by Jan Peterson on Tue, May 08, 2012 @ 10:20 AM
Reprints Desk delivers peer-reviewed literature published by STM publishers across the spectrum, from large commercial publishers to small society publishers, from U.S.-based publishers to European and Asian publishers.
Our preference is always to have a direct relationship with a publisher so we can work together to service our mutual customers. Reprints Desk often serves as an entry point into the corporate library market for publishers more used to servicing academic libraries. Corporate libraries have different needs and Reprints Desk articulates those needs for publishers.
At Reprints Desk, we've just established several new direct relationships with publishers whose content is valuable to customers like you so we'd like to take a moment to share.
The American Chemical Society is the world’s largest scientific society and one of the world’s leading sources of authoritative scientific information. Two German publishers have joined the ranks of Reprints Desk publisher partners: Dustri-Verlag Dr. Karl Feistle based in Deisenhofen/Munich and the Society for Biomedical Diabetes Research in Duisburg. U.K.-based Portland Press is now working directly with Reprints Desk, and we have expanded our relationship with Lippincott/Williams & Wilkins as we now work with the book division in addition to their journal division.
At Reprints Desk, we will continue establishing direct publisher relationships because it allows us to deliver documents faster. Our publishing partners remain interested in supporting us and our market niche because we are a trusted provider offering yet another channel for legal access to their important content.
(Note: If you're a publisher not yet working with Reprints Desk, then feel free to contact us to see how we can work together to meet the needs of the market.)
Posted by Peter Derycz on Mon, May 07, 2012 @ 07:47 PM
There’s no doubt about it, the Pharmaceutical Industry is re-tooling their sales forces and marketing initiatives around iPads, and there are certainly other tablet computing devices coming down the pipeline.
Now that those iPads have been bought, what next?
They certainly were bought to be used and there is good reason to buy them. So far, we’ve seen a lot of experimentation going with CRM tools, content, and a myriad of custom apps that various product, sales and marketing groups have rolled out and are currently experimenting with.
In our role as an aggregator of clinical reprints for the Pharma industry, Reprints Desk has witnessed quite a bit of trouble transitioning the ever present clinical reprint to the electronic realm, more specifically to the mobile realm.
Problems typically revolve around technological limitations for controlled distribution of copyrighted materials, but also dealing with publishers whose business models are based on selling paper reprints. After all, in the “paper-only” days, you simply ordered, let’s say, 50,000 reprints and they would get delivered to you and you’d pay a price per unit. You just had to get them to your storage/logistics center or to your sales reps and conferences.
But now, throw your iPads into the mix and you’ve just made the problem a whole lot more complicated. Your organization still likely needs good old paper reprints (depending on the market, product or region your dealing with), but now you also need an unknown quantity of “ePrints” or “iPrints” for a growing installed base of iPads.
It turns out that, contrary to the certainty of the paper reprints, there is still a whole lot of uncertainty surrounding electronic reprints. At the point of wanting to acquire electronic reprints, you may not know how many devices the reprints will end up on, or how many times they were used. Additionally, it’s likely you don’t have a mechanism in place to control or count the electronic distribution. That creates a problem for you and for the rights holder who owns the copyright to the reprints you’re attempting to distribute.
Is a migration of reprints to eprints on iPads possible for Pharma, Medical Devices and other Life Science companies? Or is it a dream that may only come partially true?
We’d love to hear from you and encourage you to also check out our newest ePrint innovation announcement ‘Medical Reprints Deployment on iPads and Websites Made Easier with New ePrints Mobile-Web App from Reprints Desk.’
Posted by Ian Palmer on Tue, Apr 24, 2012 @ 11:42 PM
Some of the latest innovations and advances in document delivery from Reprints Desk and other information industry suppliers are attractive, but they aren't for every organization.
Depending on what your document delivery objectives are as a library, information center, or medical information group, a web services approach may be a service configuration you'll want to seriously consider. This configuration represents one way to speed up scientific research for those who just want the fastest path to high value information.
So what is web services?
Web services is standards-based, non-proprietary, and compatible with numerous operating systems and programming languages. The technology standard does not require the use of browsers or HTML, nor is it tied to a single type of operating system or programming language, meaning that systems can communicate regardless of technical similarities or differences.
Why do Reprints Desk clients use web services?
Many Reprints Desk clients use web services today to customize their document delivery service configurations – from user authentication and order form look-and-feel, to advanced reporting data and easier access for researchers and other end users.
How does web services-enabled document delivery work?
User requests are submitted via a client-hosted order form (often on a corporate Intranet), intercepted in the background, then sent to Reprints Desk. They are processed by the Reprints Desk system, which sends back a reply to your system. Your system receives the reply, which can then be customized by your IT before displaying to the end user. Since requests are intercepted, users can be authenticated before requests are sent to Reprints Desk. In most cases, the user does not even need to know that Reprints Desk is involved.
What are the business & IT benefits?
* Interfaces can be customized to suit your needs, and have your corporate look and feel
* No need to coordinate with other systems when employees stop working for you
* Ties in with your authentication model
* Reduced impact from future service changes or transitions
* Simplifies document delivery chargebacks through better cost center data capture
What are the user benefits?
* Saves time for users who do not need to manually provide corporate-mandated information for each order
* Improves usage and minimizes support needs by not having to learn another system and remember another login
* Increases overall satisfaction
We hope you find this Article Blog update useful and would love to hear from you about your experiences or current considerations.
Posted by Ian Palmer on Fri, Jan 13, 2012 @ 02:13 PM
After an early morning email exchange with a discovery professional at Pharma company in Europe, I realized we'd not yet publically summarized all the ways Reprints Desk's Article Galaxy can speed up retrieval times for the PubMed-to-Full Text Paper workflow.
So here's a Friday afternoon post to outline the 3 ways Reprints Desk currently enhances research productivity with PubMed:
1) Start your pubmed searches using this URL (eg bookmarked inside of your browser). This will enable you to see the 'Get Article from Reprints Desk' icon. When clicked from an abstract page, it will auto-populate the citation in Reprints Desk's single article document delivery form.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?otool=reprintdesk
2) Use the ‘Search PubMed’ button in the new Article Galaxy user dashboard. This removes any need to remember the URL or to add a new bookmark to your browser. Clicking this will take you to PubMed and ensure that the "Get Article from Reprints Desk" bookmarklet appears in the user interface as outlined in the screenshot previously presented.
3) Or for something new - you can activate Bibliogo (free to individuals) to multitask:
- Import, save and manage multiple citations
- View price estimates and place multiple document delivery article orders all at once
- Import, monitor, share and order from saved search alerts
Here are a few final screenshots:
As an existing Reprints Desk customer or a prospective new one, we hope you find this information useful and we welcome your feedback.
Posted by Ian Palmer on Mon, Dec 12, 2011 @ 09:59 AM
We are pleased to share with you that the new dashboard for Reprints Desk's Article Galaxy system that users currently sign into at reprintsdesk.com will be live on January 6.
The new Article Galaxy dashboard contains a number of cool and very useful features, including:
- A new user interface (UI)
- Integrated search and order capabilities
- A new helpdesk and knowledgebase
- An article collaboration and curation tool (Bibliogo)
- Price estimates and display options
- And much more!
Here is a video preview to help you learn more and to see how these new enhancements can benefit your organization:
What's New in Article Galaxy - from Reprints Desk from Reprints Desk on Vimeo.
We hope you and your users will appreciate these improvements. And as always, we are grateful for your business and continued support.
Posted by Ian Palmer on Fri, Dec 02, 2011 @ 01:39 PM
With the recent launch of Bibliogo, we've been asked a lot lately "What's the connection between Bibliogo and Article Shelf?"
We have the answer to this question that inquiring minds want to know. But first, let us take a moment to (re-)introduce Bibliogo and Article Shelf.
Bibliogo is our new journal article web app that helps you do more with scientific, technical and medical (STM) papers.
Article Shelf is the solution we introduce customers to when they tell us they need an article archive, repository or product literature database solution. We like to think of Article Shelf as the least expensive and easiest-to-implement citation matching and rights-managed article sharing service on the market for companies with unmediated document delivery workflows.
Now the answer to the question "What's the connection between Bibliogo and Article Shelf?" is simple: they can work together or independently. Reprints Desk customers can implement Bibliogo alone, Article Shelf alone or both together.
Here's some additional information we hope you find useful:
BIBLIOGO ALONE:
• Sharing of PDFs purchased from Reprints Desk is only available at the bibliography workgroup level and only for customers who sign an agreement confirming that they have a Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) or some other reproduction rights organization license that provides them with rights for internal workgroup sharing of journal articles.
• If such a customer orders an article from a bibliography in Bibliogo and the delivery address for the order belongs to one of the bibliography members, the PDF gets delivered into Bibliogo, and a permanent link to open the PDF is made available in Bibliogo to all workgroup members.
• Articles for delivery outside of a Bibliogo workgroup, say to a physician, must be purchased before sending.
ARTICLE SHELF ALONE:
• Article Shelf requires customers to have a rights management solution appropriate for their account configuration (for example, a CCC license with RightSphere or other appropriate publisher agreements may be required depending on the intended use).
• Article Shelf attempts to match all new orders, regardless of order method (Bibliogo, Reprintsdesk.com order form, email, phone, etc.), against articles the workgroup already owns or has access to.
• Customers pay a service fee for every order filled via Article Shelf. Customers pay a royalty fee in addition to the service fee when the user doesn’t have rights to the article.
BIBLIOGO + ARTICLE SHELF
• Customers get the convenience of instant access to purchased articles within small Bibliogo workgroups as well as a blanket cost-savings measure for all new orders.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Visit the Copyright Clearance Center website at www.copyright.com. One particular FAQ you may want to check out this one: Does an Annual Copyright License allow me to do anything I want with copyrighted material?
Posted by Ian Palmer on Thu, Dec 01, 2011 @ 02:14 PM
Not that the world revolves around us, but hopefully you were able to take note of our announcement today:
New Journal Article Web App ‘Bibliogo’ Simplifies Scientific Research and Medical Marketing
Although we've been told Bibliogo has a coolness factor about it as a scientific collaboration/Web 2.0 productivity tool, what we care most about is making it easier to do more with journal articles and solving painful problems that article stakeholders face today.
To shine a light on some of the needs and desires of article users, we thought it would be useful to publish this blog post and share some recent primary research we conducted.
Take a moment to look at some of the findings we recently presented at the recent Pharma-Bio-Med conference during our presentation entitled 'Bibliographic Management Practices & Scientific Literature Usage.'
We'd love to know what problems you or your users are encountering with journal articles and what you long to do.
Posted by Ian Palmer on Tue, Nov 15, 2011 @ 01:02 PM
You purchase print journals and license electronic databases, and fellow employees are creating works.
Are copyright red flags popping up in your head?
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Who owns the rights to print journal you purchased?
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What exactly does licensing mean and how can you use licensed databases?
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Are works created by fellow employees works in which your employer owns the copyright and can be used freely at work?
So many questions, so little time...well, take a few minutes to test your knowledge on some copyright basics and specific situations.
The quiz and answers were created by Reprints Desk friend and copyright guru Lesley Ellen Harris of copyrightlaws.com (thanks, Lesley!). You can learn more about her and sign up for The Copyright & New Media Law Newsletter at her website.
Posted by Jan Peterson on Fri, Oct 07, 2011 @ 01:04 PM
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The recent "Ask the Chefs" feature on SSP's Scholarly Kitchen asked the question "What do you think is the most important trend in publishing today?" The answers ranged from the fallout from budget cuts in research libraries to the dominance of technology companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple to the end of the Big Deal as the business model that facilitated STM's shift to an online business model.
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I was particularly pleased to see the solutions-oriented answers around putting content closer to the end-user and the growth of new workflow tools that enhance productivity. Empowering the user and focusing on the customer are never bad business strategies.
And yet I wonder if all publishers appreciate what it means to truly empower the user. Publishers who are overly focused on driving users to their websites often ignore the downstream tools and services where users prefer to discover, curate and socialize content, or access an article inside a workflow that recognizes their particular environment. That environment can recognize whether or not a user has subscription-based access. It can invoice the user's company so the user doesn't have to pull out his credit card to complete a royalty-generating transaction. It can help the user discover content that she might have missed in a Pubmed search.
Users may not start on a publisher's platform, but they can get there if that publisher works with the user's preferred productivity tools. All roads can lead to Rome only if a publisher takes down the roadblocks, which require the user to start and end on their platform.
Granted not all productivity tools are sensitive to publisher concerns like copyright compliance and linking subscribers over, so a publishers looking to empower their readers at their preferred point of engagement need to do their homework. Does the vendor provide regular usage reports to publisher partners? Do they generate revenue for the publisher or just use publisher content as a springboard for their own revenue producing purposes? Do they acknowledge the publisher's IP or attempt to skirt copyright issues? Do they add value to the publisher as well as the end user?
I hope that the chefs' answers to the question will point more publishers toward recognizing the role reputable outside tools (eg document delivery, article collaboration, etc.) have in providing services to end users that individual publishers on their own cannot supply on their own.