Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Electronic library for scientific journals: Consortium project in Brazil Rosaly Favero Krzyzanowski;Taruhn, Rosane Information Technology and Libraries; Jun 2000; 19, 2; ProQuest pg. 61 Electronic Library for Scientific Journals: Consortium Project in Brazil Making information available for the acquisition and transmission of human knowledge is the focal point of this paper, which describes the creation of a consortium for the 1111iversity and research institute libraries in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Through sharing and coop- eration, the project will facilitate information access and minimize acquisition costs of international scien- tific periodicals, consequently increasing user satisfac- tion. To underscore the advantages of this procedure, the objectives, management, and implementation stages of the project are detailed, as submitted to the Research Support Foundation of the State of Sao Paulo (FAPESP). I Production, Organization, and Acquisition of Knowledge In 1851, predicting the imminent growth in information, which in fact exploded in volume one hundred years later, Joseph Henri of the Smithsonian Institute voiced his opinion that the progress of mankind is based on research, study, and investigation, which generate wis- dom, knowledge or, simply , information. He stated that for practically every item of interest there is some record of knowl edge pertinent to it, "and unless this mass of information be properly arranged, and the means fur- nished by which its content may be ascertained, literature as well as science will be overwhelmed by their own unwieldy bulk. The pile will begin to totter under its own weight, and all the additions we may heap upon it will tend to add to the extension of the base, without increas- ing the elevation and dignity of the edifice." 1 At the threshold of the twenty-first century, these words become more self-evident by the day. There are enormous archives of knowledge from which people extract parts, allowing them to advance and progress in science, technology, and the humanities. Until some decades back, recovery from these archives was essen- tially a manual task consisting of written work and organization. Today's technologies provide auxiliary tools to transmit this knowledge . Although information is a cultural and social asset, it now is purchased at high prices . Making these enormous archives available in a clear and organized manner by using the proper technology is currently the greatest challenge for all those involved in knowledge manage- ment-the production , organization, and transmission of information. Rosaly Favero Krzyzanowski Rosane Taruhn I The Advent and Implications of Electronic Publications Among the major contributions of the industrial era, out- standing are the evolution and growth of information publi shing and printing facilities that use tools to record, store, and distribute information. In the last ten years, the first steps were taken toward the storage and reproduc- tion of sounds and images in new multimedia formats. Technological advances also have brought new pos- sibilities in accessing and disseminating information . Electronic publishing has been particularly effective in accelerating access and contributing to the generation of additional knowledge; consequently, an exponential increase in data has taken place, most notably in the sec- ond half of the twentieth century. Current journals num- bered about 10,000 at the beginning of the century; by the year 2000 the number had reached an estimated 1 million. 2 As a result, specialized literature has been warning about a possible crisis in the traditional system of scien- tific publications on paper . In addition to the difficulty of financing the publication of these works, the prices of subscriptions to scientific periodicals on paper have been rising every year. At times, this makes it impracticable to update collections in all libraries, which interferes sub- stantially in development. On the other hand, access to electronic scientific pub- lications via Internet is proving to be an alternative for maintaining these collections at lower cost. It also pro- vides greater agility in publishing and distributing the periodical, and in the final user's accessing of the infor- mation. Due to this, it is important that institutions that wish to support and promote research developed by their scientific communities facilitate access to these publica- tions on electronic media . To paraphrase Line, we can say that although pub- lishers are still uncertain as to all the aspects of transmit- ting information electronically, because authors and institutions will be increasingly able to distribute their works on the Web without the direct involvements of publishers, there is an escalation in electronic publica- tions being published by scientific publishers.3 Rosaly Favero Krzyzanowski is Technical Director of the Integrated Library System of the University of Sao Paulo- SIBi/USP, Brazil. Rosane Taruhn is Director of the Development and Maintenance of Holdings Service of the Technical Department of the University of Sao Paulo-SIBi/USP, Brazil. ELECTRONIC LIBRARY FOR SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS I KRZYZANOWSKI ANDTARUHN 61 ! Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Physical Figure 1. Infrastructure Resources for Consortium Formation Line also savs that one of the reasons for the growth in the number o'f electronic publications is "that it is tech- nically possible to make them [journals] accessible in this way, and in fact easy and cheap, since nearly all te_xt ~oes through a digital version on the way to pubh~ahon. Secondly, journal publishers believe that electronic ve~- sions provide a second market in addition to that for t~eir printed versions, or at least in an expanded market, since many users will be the same." 4 . . . . . It is important to point out that the sC1enhhc penod1- cal, be it paper or electronic, must ensure market valu_e and academic community receptivity, have a staff quali- fied for scientific publishing, be consistent in publishing release dates, comply with international standards, and use established distribution and sales mechanisms. 5 Line goes further: "Electronic publication as an_ 'extra' to printed publication has few added costs of J~urnal publication other than those of printing, and pubhshe~s are not going to want to make less money fro~ elect~onic journals than they do from printed ones. While p~inted journals once acquired can be used and reused without extra cost, each access to an electronic article has to be paid for. And although the costs of storage and binding may be saved, these are offset by the costs of printing out."6 He then notes that this technology demands an active equipment and telecommunication infrastructure. Another point he addresses is the need for users to master the search strategies required to efficiently recover information, thus reducing the time spent and costs. In turn, Saunders points out that, depending on the contracts made with the publishers or their agents: 62 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND LIBRARIES I JUNE 2000 libraries, through their development, formation, and maintenance policies, should be receptive to this tran- sition by accommodating the different means of com- munication to the different user needs and striving for a new balance. These policies should certainly stress the cooperation and sharing of remote access to the information demanded. Budget estimates should, therefore, foresee, in addition to the subscriptions to electronic titles with complete texts, other possible items like licensing rates for multi-user remote access and the right to copy articles on electronic media to paper, depending on the contracts made with the pub- lishers or their agents.7 I Electronic Publication Consortiums Catering to mutual interests by setting up a library con- sortium to select, acquire, maintain, and preserve elec- tronic information is one means of reducing or sharing costs as well as expanding the universe of information available to users and ensuring a successful outcome. Resources-physical, human, financial, and elec- tronic-are combined for the common good; in this case, the consortium, as shown in figure 1, which was extracted and adapted from an OCLC Institute. 8 The consortium presupposes invigoration of coopera- tive activities among member libraries by promoting the central administration of electronic publication databases as part of a shared library system visible to all and replete with access facilities. In addition to putting in place sim- plified, reciprocal lending progra~s and spu_rring _the cooperative development of collections and the~r st~nng, the consortium has the objective of implementing infor- mation distribution by electronic means, provided that copyright and fair use rights are complied _wi~h.9 On t~e other hand, "the research library community is commit- ted to working with publishers and database producers to develop model agreements that deploy lice~ses that d? not contract around fair use or other copynght provi- sions. In this way, one seeks to insure the library practices being disseminated, especially interli?~ary lendi~g."'. 0 Experience shows that acqumng ~ubhcahons through consortia has brought great benefits and has equally favored different size institutions that would not be able to afford single subscriptions, whether on paper or in electronic format. North American and European universities have been opting for this type of alliance to augment inve~tment cost-benefit. Important examples of these consortia cur- rently operative are: • Washington Research Library Consortium, Washington, D.C., www.wric.org; Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. • University System of Georgia, Galileo Project, www.galileo.peachnet.edu; • Committee on Institutional Cooperation, Mich- igan, www.cedar.cic.net/ cic; and • Ohio Library and Information Network, Ohio Link, www.ohiolink.edu. I The Electronic Consortium in the State of Sao Paulo Considering that Brazilian institutions also are being affected by the high cost of maintaining periodical collec- tions and that alternative means of distributing this infor- mation are available, the model used abroad has shown itself as appropriate for developing the International Scientific Publications Electronic Library in the state of Sao Paulo. The location has a favorable information infra- structure available, particularly that of the electronic net- work of the Academic Network of Sao Paulo (ANSP), thanks to the support of the Research Support Foundation of the State of Sao Paulo (FAPESP). 11 Growing user demand for direct, convenient access to information in the state of Sao Paulo also was a factor in location choice. The final decision was to compose the consortium of five Sao Paulo state universities- Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP), Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Universidade de Campinas (UNI- CAMP), Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos (UFSCAR), and Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo (UNIFESP)-as well as the Latin American and Caribbean Center for Health Science Information (BIREME). The consortium's goal was to make available to the member institutions' entire scientific community-10,492 faculty and researchers -rapid access to the complete, updated texts of the Elsevier Science scientific journals. This publishing house, an umbrella for North Holland, Pergamon Press, Butterworth-Einemann, and Excerpta Medica, presently publishes electronic versions of its journals. Selection of the member institutions that would serve as a pilot group for this project was based on prior expe- rience with the cooperative work in preparing the Unibibli Collective Catalog CD-ROM, which, using Bireme/OPAS/OMS technology, consolidates the collec- tions of these three universities. The project was initially funded by the FAPESP; since its fourth edition the CD- ROM has been published through funds provided by the universities themselves, by means of a signed agreement. Moreover, choice of Elsevier Science, which would be justified solely by its premier ranking in the global pub- lishing market, also is due to the fact that consortium member institutions maintain subscriptions to a great number (606) of this publishing house's titles on paper. Already fully available on electronic media, these titles are components of a representative collection initiating the building of the International Scientific Publications Electronic Library in the state of Sao Paulo. Furthermore, the majority of the titles are studied on the Institute of Scientific Information's Web of Science site, which has been at the disposal of researchers and libraries in the state of Sao Paulo since 1998. Consortium Objectives The consortium was formed to contribute to the develop- ment of research through the acquisition of electronic publications for the state of Sao Paulo's scientific com- munity. Using the ANSP Network, in addition to aug- menting and speeding up access to current scientific information in all the member institutions, will: • increase the cost-benefit per subscription; • promote the rational use of funds; • ensure continuous subscription to these periodicals; • increase the universe of publications available to users through collection sharing; • guarantee local storage of the information acquired and thus ensure the collection's mainte- nance and its continual use by present and future researchers; and • develop the technical capabilities of the personnel of the state of Sao Paulo institutions in operating and using electronic publication databases. Initially, the project will not interfere in the current process of acquiring periodicals on paper and in distrib- uting collections in member institutions. However, as electronic collection utilization becomes predominant, duplicate subscriptions to paper may be eliminated so as to allow new subscriptions to be available to the consor- tium at no additional cost. Implementation of the Electronic Library for International Scientific Publications Implementation of this project includes the following stages already achieved: • constitution of the consortium by the six member institutions; and • set up of an administrative board. The following stages are in progress: • purchase of hardware (central server) and a soft- ware manager; and • estimate for the installation of the operational system. ELECTRONIC LIBRARY FOR SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS I KRZYZANOWSKI AND TARUHN 63 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIREME Server FAPESP Server Full-Text Database r----------.,- 1 Full-Text 1 t International i r Database 1 ~----------~ Web of Science .... •--•.. : Scientific : : Current : : Contents : SCIELO : Periodical : 1 Electronic 1 I L'b I 1 1 rary 1 .. __________ .. : Connect : I (CCC) I I I ., __________ ., \/ Universe • Web of Science: 8,000 titles • CCC: 9,000 titles Users in consortia institutions • SCIELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online): 100 titles • International Scientific Periodical Electronic Library: 606 titles Figure 2. Reference database and full-text interconnectivity to optimize information access And the following stages are planned: • training for qualified personnel and maintenance of the infrastructure built up; • acquisition and implementation of the electronic library on the central server; and • permanent utilization assessment. The pilot project proposes that the central server, for storage and availability of electronic scientific periodical collections on the ANSP network, be located at FAPESP in order to facilitate development of an electronic bank. In the future, the bank should, in addition to the collec- tion in mind for the project, include international collec- tions of other publishing houses: the Scielo collection of Brazilian scientific magazines (Project FAPESP /Bireme) as well as the Web of Science and Current Contents Connect reference databases (see figure 2). Consortium Management The electronic library will be administrated by the con- sortium's administrative board, made up of a general coordinator, an operations coordinator, and directors and coordinators of the library systems and central libraries of member institutions as well as consultants recom- mended by FAPESP. The administrative board shall be in charge of the implementation, operation, dissemination, and assess- ment of electronic library utilization. It also is charged 64 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND LIBRARIES I JUNE 2000 with supervising qualified personnel training in order to guarantee the success of the project. An agreement speci- fying the consortium objective, its constitution, the man- ner by which it shall be executed and consortium member obligations established was signed. Shortly, a contract to use Elsevier Science electronic publications shall be signed by FAPESP and by the provider. The agreement's documents and use license were drawn up in compliance with the principles for licensing electronic resources recommended by the American Library Association, published in final version at the 1997 American Library Association Annual Conference.12 I Recovery System and Information Use Evaluation Research on electronic media suggests that use of a single software program that offers different strategies and forms of interacting for searching the collections requires an evaluation of the efficiency of individual research strategies. This evaluation is critical for preparation of guidelines that orient the choice of systems and proper training programs.13 For the electronic library, the challenge of measuring not only the amount of file use but also the efficacy and efficiency of its information access systems and training for its users is an imperative task. In the project Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. described, evaluation shall be made by indicators that demonstrate use of the electronic library and of the col- lections on paper, per journal title, subject researched, user institution, number of accesses per day, and user sat- isfaction regarding service provided (interface, response time, text copies), among other factors to be studied. I Final Remarks The way in which electronic media are read by the users is a code far beyond the written, because sound and image are being added increasingly. In this first genera- tion of electronic publications, FAPESP supported avail- ability of Web of Science and of Scielo by FAPESP and the creation of the International Scientific Publications Electronic Library in the state of Sao Paulo. The possible introduction of Current Contents Connect will trigger an extraordinary leap in research development, facilitating the access of scientific information and the acquisition and transmission of human knowledge as well as enhancing the cooperative and sharing enterprise of member libraries. References and Notes l. Annual Report of the Board of Regents of tile Smit/zsonum Institution ... During the Year 1851 (Washington, D.C. 1852), 22. 2. Leo Wieers, "A Vision of the Library of the Future," in Developing the Library of the Fut11re: The Tilb11rg Experience, H. Geleijnse and C. Grootaers, eds. (Tilburg, The Netherlands: Tilburg Univ., 1994), 1-11. 3. M. B. Line, "The Case for Retaining Printed LIS Journals," !FLA Journal 24, no. 1 (Oct./Nov. 1998): 15-19. 4. Ibid. 5. R. F. Krzyzanowski, "Administra<;ao de Revistas Cientificas," in Re11niiio Anual da Sociedade de Pesquisa Odonto/6gica, Aguas de Sao Pedro, 14, 1997. (Lecture) 6. Line, "The Case for Retaining Printed LIS Journals." 7. L. M. Saunders, "Transforming Acquisitions to Support Virtual Libraries," Information Teclmology and Libraries 14, no. 1 (Mar. 1995): 41-46. 8. OCLC Institute, OCLC Instit11te Seminar: Information Tec/znology Trends for thl' Global Library Cormmmity, 1997, Ohio (Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Institute/The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/Funda<;ao Gettilio Vargas/Bibliodata Library Network, 1997). 9. A definition of fair use is the "legal use of information: permission to reproduce texts for the purposes of teaching, study, commentary or other specific social purposes." Found in J. S. D. O'Connor, "Intellectual Property: An Association of Research Libraries Statement of Principles." Accessed July 28, 1999, http://arl.cni.org/ scomm/ copyright/ principles. html. 10. Statement of Current Perspective and Preferred Practices for the Selection and Purchase of Electronic Information. ICOLC Statement on Electronic Information. Accessed July 2, 1998, www.library.yale.edu/ consortia/statement.html. 11. R. F. Krzyzanowski and others, Biblioteca Eletr6nica de Publicac;oes Cientfficas Internacionais para as Universidades e Institutos de Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo, 1998 (project presented to FAPESP-Fundac;ao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo). 12. B. E. C. Schottlaender, "The Development of National Principles to Guide Librarians in Licensing Electronic Resources," Library Acquisitions-Practice and Theory 22, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 49-54. 13. W. S. Lang and M. Grigsby, "Statistics for Measuring the Efficiency of Electronic Information Retrieval," Journal of the American Society for Information Science 47, no. 2 (Feb. 1996): 159-66. ELECTRONIC LIBRARY FOR SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS I KRZYZANOWSKI AND TARUHN 65