From your 1997-98 OCLC Users' Council Delegates:
Bernard Strong Marcia Talley
[log in to unmask] [log in to unmask]
ph: 202-287-9463 ph: 410-293-6905
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Chip Nilges +1-614-764-6037
[log in to unmask]
Nita Dean +1-614-761-5002
[log in to unmask]
OCLC FIRSTSEARCH ELECTRONIC COLLECTIONS ONLINE DEBUTS
DUBLIN, Ohio, June 16, 1997--The OCLC FirstSearch Electronic Collections
Online service is now available to libraries around the world.
"Electronic Collections Online gives libraries the quality and perpetual
access they have always received with print subscriptions coupled with the
added searching power and space savings of electronic documents," said John
Barnes, director, Electronic Journals, OCLC. "Users can quickly search
across whole collections of journals for the information they need. The
service is designed to assist libraries in continuing their evolution to
online electronic information sources."
OCLC developed Electronic Collections Online to support the efforts of
libraries and consortia to acquire, circulate, manage and archive large
collections of electronic academic and professional journals on the Web.
The service enables libraries to subscribe to large collections of academic
journals, from many publishers and disciplines, and access them remotely
through a single Web interface that supports cross-journal searching and
extensive browsing. Libraries choose the journals they want and subscribe
to them through the individual publishers or through participating
subscription agents. Additionally, Electronic Collections Online provides
usage statistics at the journal level to help with selection decisions, and
an archiving solution that ensures perpetual access for a library to its
collection of journals, even if that library discontinues its subscription
for subsequent issues.
Abstracts and indexes on the new service are available in HyperText Markup
Language (HTML). Full-text articles are currently available in Portable
Document Format (PDF) or, in some cases, HTML. OCLC intends to support
additional data formats later in 1997.
OCLC launched the service with 100 journals available and is adding more
titles as they become available from the 16 participating publishers.
Approximately 500 titles are scheduled to be available by the end of 1997.
A complete list of publishers and journals, as well as additional
information, is available on the service*s Web site
[www.oclc.org/oclc/menu/eco.htm].
Libraries order the service by establishing an access account with OCLC, or
their OCLC-affiliated regional network or international distributor, then
ordering journals through the individual publishers or through one of six
participating subscription agents: Blackwell*s, DA Information Services,
EBSCO Information Services, the Faxon Company, HARRASSOWITZ, and Swets &
Zeitlinger. OCLC expects to add more subscription agents, publishers and
journals in the coming months.
Electronic Collections Online is designed to accommodate access and storage
of thousands of titles. In future releases, OCLC plans to fully integrate
Electronic Collections Online with the OCLC FirstSearch service.
The launch of Electronic Collections Online comes at the conclusion of a
successful preview program, which began in March and ran through the launch
with nine universities and university systems and nine library consortia
participating.
A pioneer in electronic scholarly publishing, OCLC launched the world*s
first peer-reviewed online medical journal, the Online Journal of CURRENT
CLINICAL TRIALS, in July 1992. With FirstSearch Electronic Collections
Online, OCLC is building on its experience in electronic publishing to
provide libraries with a cost-effective way to access, archive and manage
large collections of electronic journals.
OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit, membership, computer
library service and research organization whose computer network and
services link more than 24,000 libraries in 63 countries and territories
[www.oclc.org]. (GP)
-0-
|