Sample screen from UnCover's new World Wide Web interface.
"We Send Science Around the World"
On-line document search and delivery services are having a major impact on the way researchers and students access scholarly and professional journals. At Allen Press, our unique collaboration with the largest of these services, UnCover, has made us keenly aware of the interest journal publishers have in taking advantage of the opportunities presented by this new technology.
Through our Access to UnCover program, we have helped many journal publishers understand how document delivery works and how best to use it to disseminate the information in their journals to the widest possible audience.
Since our last newsletter on Access to UnCover, many important enhancements have been made to the UnCover service. We have also had numerous discussions with journal publishers during which many questions have come up about the operational and financial aspects of document delivery. In this newsletter, we bring you up to date on exciting new developments in the Access to UnCover service, including a World Wide Web interface. We then address the questions that publishers most frequently ask us about this service. We are also pleased to bring you a guest column by Martha Whittaker, Vice President of UnCover's parent company, the CARL Corporation. Miss Whittaker explains how UnCover is working with libraries to expand greatly the number of journal articles that library patrons can access.
UnCover is the largest on-line database of journal table of contents information. Users access the database via the Internet and can do on-line searches of articles by title keyword, by author, or by journal. In addition, the user can order fax delivery of the full text of articles. Through our unique Access to UnCover program, we work with journal publishers to make the UnCover service available to their readers at the lowest possible cost. Journals that participate in Access to UnCover are assigned a special Telnet address and a Password that entitles their readers to a discount off the regular document delivery fee. We also assist participating journals in making document delivery agreements with UnCover, an important step to insure that publishers exercise their right to set the royalty terms for delivery of copies of their articles.
We consider Access to UnCover an important part of our mission to serve the rapidly changing needs of journal publishers. Throughout our involvement with this program, we have been continually impressed by UnCover's commitment to safeguarding the rights of journal publishers to copyright protection and fair compensation. This newsletter will help you understand how this service can help your journal program achieve its objectives. I am sure you will find many of your own questions answered in the next several pages.
John Breithaupt
Division Director
Allen Marketing & Management
j_breith@allenpress.com
by
Ralph DeSoignie
Allen Marketing & Management
Coordinator, Access to UnCover
Guest Contributor:
Martha Whittaker
Vice President for Academic Marketing, the CARL Corporation
Since launching the Access to UnCover program over two years ago, Allen Press has received a very enthusiastic response from the scholarly and professional publishing community. To date, 177 journals have enrolled in this program for facilitating use of UnCover's document search and delivery service by their readers and members of their societies.
We have worked with these participating journals to inform their readers about the Access to UnCover customized Telnet address and free Password, which entitle the user to the lowest document delivery fee available today. Through this collaboration with participating journals, hundreds of thousands of scholars and professionals have learned about this powerful research tool that is available literally at their fingertips.
In our numerous contacts with participating publishers, we have engaged in a fruitful dialogue that has educated publishers about the technical and economic aspects of today's on-line document search and delivery services. We in turn have learned a great deal about the concerns of publishers regarding the impact of today's electronic communications technologies on their journal publishing programs.
In keeping pace with the rapid changes in on-line communications technologies, a number of important enhancements in UnCover's services have been recently launched or are currently in development. The purpose of this newsletter is twofold: to explain the important new developments in the UnCover service, and to answer the most frequently asked questions by journal publishers about Access to UnCover.
1. World Wide Web Interface
The most exciting news for UnCover users is that a World Wide Web interface has just been released. UnCover's new Web interface provides an easy-to-use graphical format for accessing all the UnCover services, including ordering articles. It makes using UnCover much easier for the vast public that have become frequent users of the Web, and it opens up UnCover use to everyone with access to the Web.
The new Web interface for UnCover is available now to the general public on URL www.carl.org/uncover. A customized Web address for Access to UnCover users is currently under development, and we will be announcing its availability over the next few months.
2. Reveal Current Awareness Service
UnCover's Reveal service lets UnCover users select up to 50 journal titles and receive the tables of contents from these journals via e-mail as soon as they are added to the UnCover database (usually at the same time the journals arrive at libraries). In the short time since its launch, Reveal has received widespread acceptance by the research community; there are currently over 30,000 Reveal users. In 1994, Reveal was honored with the prestigious ONLINE Magazine Product of the Year award.
In 1995, UnCover added topical alerting to Reveal. This allows users to create up to 25 search strategies by author or subject; whenever an article by that author or on that subject is entered in the UnCover database, the citation is e-mailed to the user.
Reveal is an excellent tool for keeping researchers aware of the latest literature in their fields of specialization. Access to UnCover users are eligible for a 20% discount off the annual Reveal fee. When you enroll your journal in Access to UnCover, we send you all the materials you need for informing your readers and members about Reveal and how to get the discount.
3. UnCover Express
The UnCover Express database contains just articles that are available for delivery within one hour. These articles are electronically stored by UnCover (with the publisher's consent), so there is no need to retrieve them from a library stack, making express delivery possible. UnCover Express is available through the regular UnCover menu. It is a great tool for anyone needing nearly instant delivery of full texts of articles. The UnCover Express database currently contains over 200,000 articles, with hundreds of new citations added daily.
Sample screen from UnCover's new World Wide Web interface.
UnCover strives to index the most complete collection possible of all scholarly journals published in English. There are 22 libraries worldwide that contribute journals from their collections to the UnCover database. With over 17,000 journals already in the database, UnCover's collection includes a very large majority of the journals that any researcher is likely to need. New journals continue to be added all the time. When you enroll your journal in Access to UnCover, we will confirm the status of your journal in the UnCover database; if it is not listed, we let you know what arrangements you need to make to have your journal considered for inclusion.
UnCover strives to have document delivery agreements with all of the publishers of articles indexed in its database. Many of the readers of this newsletter have probably received agreement forms from UnCover for this purpose. The agreement allows the publishers to set the royalty fee to be paid per article copy delivered. When no agreement is in effect, UnCover pays the publisher a default royalty fee of $3.00 per article delivered. Recently, however, UnCover has adopted a new policy with respect to journals that have not been previously included in the database; UnCover will not deliver articles from these journals without a formal agreement. This is part of an UnCover effort to have all royalty terms set in advance according to the publisher's express wishes.Publishers who do not have document delivery agreements with UnCover but who are registered with the Copyright Clearance Center have their UnCover royalties paid to the CCC monthly; the CCC in turn pays the publisher. These publishers, however, may choose at any time to enter into a direct agreement with UnCover and receive the royalties directly.
An important part of Access to UnCover is to facilitate the making of document delivery agreements with UnCover. Your Access to UnCover enrollment form asks whether your journal is covered by a document delivery agreement with UnCover; if it is not, we notify UnCover, and they contact you directly to make an agreement. Currently, over two-thirds of UnCover's document delivery agreements are direct agreements.
UnCover sends its royalty reports and payments to journal publishers on a quarterly basis. Each individual article delivered from a journal title has its own record on the report. The record includes the journal title, article title, and author name. Your UnCover quarterly reports are thus a good indicator of the articles from your journal that attract the most interest; this is valuable information for your journal's editorial staff.
UnCover has created a first-of-its-kind writers royalty system in collaboration with the National Writers Union. Under this system, the NWU clears copyrights and distributes royalties paid by UnCover for delivery of articles whose copyright is held by the author. This innovative program is a testimony to UnCover's commitment to respecting the right of copyright holders to fair compensation for use of their work.
Yes, UnCover is currently developing an electronic delivery system and is making rapid progress. The system is expected to go live before the end of the year. Initially the articles will be delivered as electronic images produced by scanning the pages of the article. Ultimately, however, the plan calls for on-line delivery of true electronic documents. UnCover will be working closely with publishers to work out the technical and copyright issues involved in electronic delivery of articles.
Yes, UnCover is offered on the CompuServe menu of services. CompuServe users can access the UnCover database by simply selecting UnCover from their menu choices.
Yes, anyone with a modem can access the UnCover database by dialing (303)756-3600.
UnCover estimates that the database is accessed over 20,000 times per day. UnCover fills between 1,000 and 2,000 document delivery orders per day, and the number continues to grow substantially every year. The availability of the World Wide Web interface now provides an even wider community of researchers and professionals with convenient access to this rich source of information vital to their work.
Unlimited document searching is free of any cost. The cost per article for document delivery is the publisher's royalty fee plus the UnCover document delivery fee, which is $8.50 for users who have no Password and $6.50 for users with a Password. Normally, a Password costs $900 per year, but Access to UnCover users receive a Password free of charge, entitling them to the lowest document delivery fee. The publisher's royalty fees are set by the publishers in their document delivery agreement. Publishers may set any fee they wish; typical fees are $3 to $5 per document.
When you enroll your journal in Access to UnCover, we send you, free of charge, the materials you need to inform your readers and your society members about the services available through UnCover. The materials we will provide you include:
The information also includes the special Access to UnCover Gateway address and the Password which entitles the user to a discount on the document delivery fee and on the Reveal service.
We will keep you updated on new developments in the UnCover service, including the assignment of a special Web address for Access to UnCover users. If your journal is not yet covered by a document delivery agreement with UnCover, we will also arrange for UnCover to send you an agreement.
We encourage you to return the enclosed card if your journal is not enrolled in Access to UnCover, so that we can send you an enrollment kit right away.
Through the Access to UnCover program, Allen Press will continue to work with journal publishers to bring their readers the full benefits of the latest on-line document search and delivery tools under terms that protect the publisher's rights and interests.
by
Martha Whittaker
Vice President for Academic Marketing
CARL Corporation, a Knight-Ridder Information, Inc. (KRII) company
Disintermediation is a term that has become popular in the library profession these days. The use of the word first emerged in the banking industry and referred to the trend toward third parties offering what had been up to then traditional banking services. Disintermediation came to the telephone company when the friendly operator got out of the way of long distance calling and technology made it possible for you to "dial" directly to London, Nairobi, or Sioux Falls by touch tone buttons on your telephone.
In the library world, disintermediation means taking the librarian out of the middle of many of the more routine services offered by the library and letting the patrons do it themselves. Making unmediated services available in the library frees the library professional to do more complex work, and, as a library director of a large urban public library put it recently, patrons are free."
One of the early goals of the UnCover service, one of the largest on-line periodical index and document delivery services in the world, was to make it easy for library patrons to search the 8-million citation database successfully and order full text of documents on their own.
This achieved some success—the users loved the idea, but there were institutional imperatives at work in the libraries that made truly unmediated document ordering problematic. Libraries, particularly academic and corporate libraries, have a long tradition of subsidizing interlibrary loan charges for their clientele. Requesters of articles from the UnCover database liked the empowerment of being able to control their own ordering, but wanted the library to continue to pay. Libraries were reluctant to give their users unrestricted use of library funds to order articles from UnCover. They had an interest in protecting the investment they had made in their collections, and they needed to be sure that those resources were used before the researcher went outside the collection.
In the fall of 1995, UnCover introduced its SUMO service—for Subsidized UnMediated Ordering. This service lets the library that uses the UnCover customized services block ordering of items owned by the library and subsidize delivery of articles not in the library collection. Therefore libraries could continue to spend their valuable subscription dollars on materials central to their curriculum, but still provide their patrons with access to a breadth of information.
Libraries that use the SUMO service are discovering that researchers are using articles from periodicals the library would never actually purchase—titles too esoteric or removed from the central mission of the institution. Yet a close look at the articles ordered reveals that the articles themselves are very pertinent. Every periodical, no matter how specialized, has cross-disciplinary content. Often these articles are little read, because many of the subscribers are not interested, and the interested individuals are not subscribers.
So publishers win in this unmediated environment. UnCover and similar document delivery services pay publishers copyright on every article delivered. When a researcher in social work orders an article from a biology journal, the publisher gets a royalty fee from a source that would never be a market for a periodical subscription. The royalty fee represents revenue from a new market.
In fact, everyone wins. The library provides access to materials it could never afford to buy, researchers and writers gain broader professional alliances, and the publishers find new audiences for their publications.
Martha Whittaker served as General Manager of the UnCover Company, a division of the CARL Corporation, from 1993 through March 1996. As General Manager, she built UnCover into an international market leader and introduced such innovative services as UnCover Reveal, the award-winning e-mail table of contents and topical alert service used by more than 30,000 people worldwide. In her present position as Vice President for Academic Marketing of the CARL Corporation, Miss Whittaker directs the marketing efforts for UnCover and new information delivery products from CARL and KRII.