Literature Sources
The default assumptions about where and how we access scientific literature have been changing rapidly, but multiple possibilities still exist:
- You or your library buy hard-copy Journals and books that you read (or leave to pile on your desk)
- You assemble copies of articles or hard-copy reprints distributed by authors
- You obtain abstracts or full text from Internet resources
Beginning around the year 2000, scientists began to expect that all the literature they wanted (and the search tools that encompassed that literature) would all be on line. It was not so then, and is still not so now. But that goal is getting closer, in part because of the NIH Public Access Policy
There are a number of challenges to making the literature available:
- Who will pay for it? The concept of literature as intellectual property
made it possible to cover publication and distribution costs by charging
for subscriptions.
- Is it available? All modern literature has some electronic basis in publication which can and now usually does get converted into html and/or pdf web-friendly formats.
- There is still useful literature that never had an electronic version. Typescript was set in print.
- Some original electronic versions from the publishers have still not been made available for a variety of reasons
- Some old articles are being added as images rather than searchable text into on-line repositories
The first issue has two solutions. Some electronic full text literature is
free. We call that the "Public Literature." Some still requires subscription
support, and whether you have access to that depends upon your having a personal
subscription or the institution with which you are affiliated having an institutional
subscription. We call such literature "Licensed"
The Public Literature
Full text is available only for articles that are made available for free by
the publisher (usually after several months to a couple of years) or published
freely under an "open access" model. Some of these resources are made available through NCBI and others through individual publishers.
What can I retrieve from the public version of PubMed?
As we reviewed earlier, PubMed is a search tool. But it links to full text resources.
PubMed Central
(PMC)
- Full-text digital archive of life sciences journal literature
- Currently scanning archives (older editions) of several biomedical journals
NCBI BookShelf
- A growing collection of online books
- Often represents the nearly current version of popular textbooks
OMIM:
Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man.
- What started out once as a book is now an integrated database of human genetics closely linked to NCBI molecular databases
- A catalog of human genes and genetic disorders, first authored and edited
by Dr. Victor McKusick
What free full text is available from publishers?
Some Web sites are maintained by scientific organizations and for-profit
publishing houses that provide some levels of access to journal literature
to non-subscribers.
BioMed Central
- Publishes of over 180 peer reviewed journals,
most of them available as open access. Some titles do contain premium
content which is available only by subscription, but which becomes free
to registered users after 2 years.
- Original research articles in all
journals published by BioMed Central are open access and are archived
immediately in PubMed Central.
- You can choose
to search only the BMC titles, PubMed Central (including the BMC titles)
or PubMed.
Nature
- Search the Nature web site, including journals
- Some articles publicly available
- Licensed content is available via the UMDNJ Library links to individual Nature
titles.
Highwire Press
- Several societies and publishers use this resource, provided by Stanford University, as their tool for on-line publishing.
- It includes an archive of
freely available articles
- Comparable to Science Direct and Nature, it searches full text of Highwire hosted journals
- There is an option to also
search MEDLINE.
Public Library of Science
- Open access publishing model, launched
to great fanfare in the Fall of 2003.
- Current titles are
available from PLoS . They include
- Biology
- Hub for Clinical Trials
- Computational Biology
- Genetics
- Medicine
- Neglected Tropical Diseases
- Pathogens
- PLoS ONE
Even commercial publishers are testing the waters of open access
- PNAS -
- Introduced an open access option (authors can choose to pay $$850-$1,200 fee
to make articles available free immediately)
- Currently all articles available after 6 months
- Oxford -
- Offers some journals, including Nucleic Acids
Research and DNA Research, under
a full open access model (publication fees instead of subscription)
- An additional 60 titles include an open access option
- Currently all articles available after 6 months
- Springer -
- Authors can choose between traditional publication or an open access
model, "Open Choice", with a publication fee of $3,000 per article
What can I retrieve from library-enhanced PubMed services?
Other articles are available to us because PubMed may understand that we are permitted to use UMDNJ resources.
- A button appears above the article title in the abstract display.
- use the
 button,
but it doesn't hurt to try the publisher's button also.
- Full text can be retrieved only if the library subscribes or if the title is freely
available.
What can I get from other UMDNJ services?
The libraries subscribe to several bibliographic databases that will
lead you to the biomedical literature. Depending on the database, you can retrieve
citations, abstracts, full text, or links to full text. These databases are
licensed through publishers and vendors for UMDNJ.
Ovid
The libraries license for Ovid provides both the search interface discussed earlier but also several ful-text resources .
- Linking capabilities between *many* bibliographic and full-text resources
- Journals@Ovid
- limited to UMDNJ subscriptions
- full text is searchable
- links from MEDLINE and other Ovid databases to Journals@Ovid
- Books@Ovid (UMDNJ)
- search all or individual titles
- full text is searchable
Retrieving Online Articles from Journals@Ovid
- UMDNJ
Journals@Ovid Full Text (UMDNJ)
- many Ovid databases link to this as "Ovid Full Text"
- can be searched directly
- no controlled vocabulary
- searches the full text of subscribed journals
- not all articles are available in PDF format
- retrievable via PubMed, if logged in via the proxy server, click on .
Licensed Electronic Books
The UMDNJ libraries subscribe to a wide selection of electronic books as individual titles and collections. A sampling includes ACP Medicine, ACS Surgery, and Harrison’s Textbook
of Internal Medicine. As collections, UMDNJ subscribes to Books@Ovid, Ergito, MD Consult and STAT!Ref and Access Medicine.
Access Medicine and Ergito may
be of particular interest to biomedical researchers.
VALE and NJKI
UMDNJ has joined with other academic libraries within New Jersey
to subscribe to several databases, many of which include full text articles.
- The New Jersey Virtual Academic Library Environment
- Group purchasing and licensing by a consortium of NJ College and University
Libraries
- Funded by University and State Bond Funds
VALE Resources
- ScienceDirect
- Full text of Elsevier journals
- Links from Ovid databases, PubMed, BioMed Central, and Scirus
- L logon to PubMed or Scirus via the UMDNJ Libraries links.
- Links from BioMed Central will work only on-campus and only for subscribed
titles.
- Full text is searchable
New Jersey Knowledge Initiative (NJKI)
NJKI (New Jersey Knowledge Initiative) is made possible by the Governor's Office, the New Jersey State Legislature and supported by: NJ Library Association, NJ VALE, Central Jersey Library Cooperative, South Jersey Library Cooperative, Highlands Library Cooperative, and INFOLINK. The resource includes
- Academic
Search Premier
- Indexes and provides short abstracts for more than 8,000 periodicals
(over 4,500 full text)
- wide range of academic areas including arts, business, communication,
education, humanities, language and linguistics, literature, sciences,
social sciences, technology and women's studies
- Biomedical Reference
Collection
- full text of nearly 900 journals indexed in MEDLINE
- Nature Online Journals
- full text of 20 journals from the Nature Publishing Group
- Wiley Interscience Journals
- full text of over 170 journals selected by New Jersey academic libraries
Page last updated
October 8, 2007
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Free in PubMed
Central
Free full text
availalbe from publisher