Comments on: Online journals – curse or blessing?

By: jebyrnes

jebyrnes — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:19:58 +0000

I think there’s a big element of what is available. At first, journals came online with only the last four or five years of their papers. As time has gone by, they’ve gotten more extensive archives, which has led to people not willing to head over to the library more likely to get access to those papers. Secondly, search engine improvements have begun to actually index those papers. Why, just in a search today, google scholar pulled up a few 1917 and 1924 papers for me. ISI doesn’t even go back that far (or, didn’t for quite some time). What you use to search the literature will determine what you cite. As we improve our online systems, things should kick back to normal. But a blip in the citation dates and journals that corresponds with the emergence of the technology? Totally unsurprising.

By: Jan Husdal

Jan Husdal — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:55:22 +0000

Not sure what they were missing. Personally, I prefer to do the research from my lap(top). I very rarely go to the library. Maybe I am the one who is missing something?

By: Jan Husdal

Jan Husdal — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:53:27 +0000

I guess you have a point there, if you mean that online journals allow for a more selective citation process, since there is just too much available? While before, all you have were the few journals the library could afford to subscribe to? Personally I prefer the current state, and I am lucky enough to have a library that subscribes to almost everything.

By: Bert Humpy

Bert Humpy — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:38:18 +0000

But what were these old-world scholars missing, during the ten weeks of each year that they were drifting the library journal stacks and blowing the dust off bound volumes of back-issues?

By: Dr Vector

Dr Vector — Sun, 31 May 2009 05:11:32 +0000

What!? Someone at Science, which has almost all of its articles behind a paywall, thinks letting people just look up whatever they want is a bad idea? I’m about to have a heart attack and die of not surprise.