> From: 	Sara Penhale[SMTP:sarap@earlham.edu]
> Sent: 	Tuesday, March 23, 1999 12:24 PM
> To: 	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: 	Chem Abstracts
> 
> Hello science librarians,
> 
> I'd like ideas on how people are presently accessing Chemical Abstracts.
> Here is my situtation:
> 
> We do not get the print indices.  We do get the print abstracts.
> We use CA Search on Dialog (through the discounted CIP) to search the
> indices and then go to the print abstracts if necessary (Dialog doesn't
> have the abstracts).
> We don't use STN because we want to be able to search cheap rates during
> the day.
> 
> I am wondering whether I should stop getting the print abstracts and just
> rely on the citations Dialog provides.
> 
> Is it still true that cheap STN is only available in the day?
> 
> What are other people doing?  
> 
> Sara

From Alison.Ricker@oberlin.edu Wed Mar 24 15:20:46 1999
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 13:17:57 -0800 (PST)
To: Multiple recipients of list 
Subject: Re: Chem Abstracts

STN has recently expanded hours for academic users on the weekends, their
complete hours are now:

     8:00am (U.S. Eastern Time) Sunday --> 5:00am (Local Time U.S) Monday 
     5:00pm (Local Time) --> 5:00am the following day - Mondays-Fridays 
     5:00pm (Local Time) Friday --> 6:00pm (Eastern Time U.S.) Saturday 

CAS has set up a web page just for academic users, it offers some good
information:
http://www.cas.org/casacad.html

-- Alison
Oberlin

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 13:40:40 -0800 (PST)
From: Tim Klassen 
Subject: Re: Chem Abstracts

At Wesleyan we subscribe to SciFinder Scholar which runs about 18K for one
user for the STN discount hours (5pm on etc.) and for another 10K we could
get it 24 hours per day. Our faculty, though initially reluctant to give up
the print, have been very happy with this product. I just wish that CAS was
willing to look at some sort of consortial arrangement for small colleges.

Tim Klassen
Science Librarian
Wesleyan University Science Library

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 14:47:26 -0800 (PST)
From: Kathleen Kenny 
Subject: Re: Chem Abstracts

	I agree with Tim.  SciFinder is a very good product, but $28,000
is pretty steep, especially for those who have already found the print too
expensive.  Our regional rep found the idea of a consortium deal
"interesting," as though CAS had never heard of the concept.  He promised
to get back to us (this was last October). 

	Bowdoin has kept the print so far, but this year's 70% price
increase is going to make it very hard to keep. 
  
	I've thought about alternatives a lot, needless to say.  If you'd
got an active chemistry program and department, and if you take the ACS
Library Guidelines seriously, about CA being "part of the collection" it
seems that mimimum access would be a DIALOG account for "Daytime" plus an
STN account for "After-5," for structure searching, and for access to STN
Easy for those who don't want to learn DIALOG commands.  Still, I would
guess this would cost a small college several thousand dollars in search
fees. And, the science librarian would have to keep up with 3 search
interfaces! 
  
	Has anyone had useful conversations with any CAS reps on the
subject of consortium dealing?
	
							Kathleen Kenny
							Science Librarian 
							Bowdoin College
						
From Alison.Ricker@oberlin.edu Wed Mar 24 15:21:06 1999
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 18:31:56 -0800 (PST)

re: consortium pricing and CAS - OhioLINK has had several discussions with
ACS and CAS on consortial pricing for SciFinder Scholar and CA Student
Edition (not many Ohio libraries were that interested in CA student ed. on
FirstSearch, but OhioLINK was checking anyway), and the pricing has always
been far beyond what anyone in the state could consider.  A few of the
larger Ohio institutions have SciFinder, but it is not through the
consortium.  It's ironic that OhioLINK and CAS could not cooperate more
closely, since their offices are nearly in the same neighborhood!
 - Alison

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 08:08:52 -0800 (PST)
From: "Dora D. Wong" 

At Bryn Mawr College, we cancelled the print CA in 1996 and have used CA
on CD ever since. Additionally we have academic and standard accounts for
STN online searching. Recently from various conversations with faculty and
graduate students, I find that they are very comfortable using STNEasy
when they need to do multiyear retrospective searching. They love STNEasy
because it is web-accessible so it is convenient for them to search even
when not on site. Also they like the link to fulltext feature now
availalbe from STNEasy. With our subscription to ACS Web Edition PLan B,
it costs nothing for them to get ACS articles (from 1996-) instantly.
BMC would love to have SciFinder Scholar 24 hours but I hear linking to
fulltext is not automatic as in STNEasy, so that is something to look
into.
ALso, our local rep has been lobbying for consortial pricing, I'll check
with him again to see if there has been any movement.

Dora Wong
Science and Psychology Libraries
Bryn Mawr College

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 11:38:39 -0800 (PST)
From: mspence1@swarthmore.edu

At Swarthmore, we still subscribe to the print version (both Indexes &
Abstracts) of CA, and I'm starting to think we are the only ones who do, as
ACS periodically showers us with gifts of chocolate and fancy plaques... We
have one die-hard chem professor who religiously searches the print volumes
every week, and has only this week expressed interest in searching
CAS-Online via STN after hours.  I plan to promote STNeasy this summer,
which may do the trick. We have distributed several passwords among the
Chemistry Faculty (not students, although I suspect some thesis students
may be using it with faculty guidance, which is fine), and the ones who are
interested are very happy to search the discounted, academic STN themselves
(I don't think many of them are using STNeasy yet, but that may change with
some instruction).

I would suspect, due to space problems and financial considerations, we may
cancel the print version in the next year or so, but at this point, no
decision has been made.

Meg E. Spencer
Science Librarian
Cornell Library of Science & Engineering
Swarthmore College

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 14:13:46 -0800 (PST)
From: Alexa Jaffurs 

At Amherst College,

The chemistry dept. decided to cancel the print index last year and spend
the money on STN searches.  We have codes for both the undiscounted full
spectrum of STN databases and the afterhours discounted CA and INSPEC.  I
have enough access codes for the chemistry faculty and a few strays in
biology and physics.   STN used to hand out unlimited numbers, but now
requires one account for every 20 or so passwords.

About half of the chemists themselves are using the service, but I also
have access codes for their thesis students.  I use one code for each lab
and then change them after they graduate.  For other class projects, we
play it by ear.  (Most of the chemistry at this school is biologically
oriented so that PubMed can answer many of the questions posed.)

In the fall I demonstrate the databases and compare the telnet STN, and
STNeasy.  The students tend to go for the speed of the telnet  program.
Faculty who only search occassionally tend to prefer STNeasy.  When the
students are ready to start their library research, they come to me for a
password and a refresher course on how to do
their search.

So far, we haven't been stuck with any outrageous bills.  Useage is
increasing.
I wish that STN would get on the ball and offer some sort of IP address
based program.

Alexa Jaffurs
Amherst College

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 19:45:29 -0800 (PST)
From: James Manasco 

At Colorado College, we still get the print and indices, but we haven't
bought a collective since the 11th.  We provide access to CA Search on
Dialog (10 CIP logons).  We've never provided access to STN and, in the two
years I've been here, we've never had a request for a structure search.  The
print gets only limited use now, mainly by about two classes and one or two
faculty members.  I have thought about trying out FirstSearch's CA Student
Edition to see if that would replace getting the paper for our students
(since we only have undergraduates here), it does cover the biggies and does
have abstracts.  With the price going up, I worry that we are spending an
incredible amount of money to keep a relative few students/faculty happy.
Take care, James
James E. Manasco                           Phone:  (719) 389-6672
Natural Sciences Librarian                 Fax:  (719) 389-6859
Colorado College-Tutt Library

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 15:17:35 -0800 (PST) 
From: "Sharon R. Clayton"

At Knox, we stopped subscribing to the print indices sometime in the 80s, 
and switched to Dialog access. We have both a regular dialog account and 
a CIP account, and all searching is mediated by a librarian.  As someone 
else mentioned, Dialog does not provide the abstracts. We've haven't 
found the lack of abstracts to be a  problem because all the descriptors, 
identifiers, and RNs with notes are included. However, we are thinking of 
switching to the after hours STN access for 2 other reasons. 1st, our 
patrons want end user access - they don't want to have to schedule an 
appointment with a librarian to do all their searches. 2nd, some of our 
newer faculty now need to be able to do structure searches. We too would 
love to be able to have the SciFinder Scholar product, but even at a 
consortial discount it would probably be way out of our price range. I 
talked to a CA rep at a conference about 2 years ago around when  
SciFinder first came out, and he said then that they were looking at 
developing more workable pricing structures for smaller colleges. 
Obviously, they haven't gotten very far! Maybe some of us who are going 
to be at ACRL (and by the way has anything happened about setting up a get
together there?) could descend on the CA booth all together and make an 
impact. 
Sharon Clayton 
Associate Librarian
Knox College 
Galesburg, IL 61401 
Email: sclayton@knox.edu  

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 08:37:34 -0800 (PST) 
From: Kathleen Kenny 

The Chemists here have made it very clear that they want access to some 
version of CA just about any time. That has been a major argument
for keeping the print indexes. Since CA is more than just a periodical 
index, they have a point. People pop over from their labs to verify 
something, for instance, using the abstracts or sometimes just one of 
the Indexes or the Index Guide. I wonder if other people have heard the 
same arguements? For campuses that have cancelled the print and substituted
some version of online access, has there been demand for more access 
than you orginally planned? What I'd like is a single interface that's as 
good as the print, that is simple and affordable enough to let anyone 
use (faculty down to first year students). Students here are expected to 
begin learning to search the print CA in their 2nd chemistry course. I'd 
want to be able to introduce them to the online alternative. If this dream 
system costs 25 or 30% more than we paid this year for our combination of 
print and STN access, I would probably switch over. Otherwise, I'll go 
on juggling 3 systems, beating the budget-cutting wolves back from the 
index shelves, and slowly losing my marbles. 

Kathleen Kenny 
Science Librarian 
Bowdoin College

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 09:16:04 -0800 (PST)
From: Susan Cole 

At Colby, we'd been weaning the chemists off Chem Abstracts for awhile.
Sometime in the 1970's, we decided to subscribe only to the print INDEXES,
and got the abstracts on microfilm. Then around 1993 we stopped subscribing
altogether, and switched to STN access. We knew we had to go the STN route
to get the abstracts for our users.  I hosted two STN training workshops
for basic searching and structure searching which were attended by faculty
and other chemists in the region.

Our faculty and students have been accessing CA thru STN Express for the
past 6 years. We have two accounts: the standard account that I use for any
"emergency" daytime use, and the academic account for faculty and students.
Faculty love it since they can work from home, office, even overseas on
sabbatical. After 5 has been fine since that fits their time available.  We
have incorporated an intense library instruction module in the spring of
O-Chem (used to be in the intro class) whereby the students ran thru a
training workbook during the day using LCA file (learning file) so the cost
was reasonable, and I was available to help. Then they worked on their
projects at night.

This semester we have made another change. The STN Express software can be
very finicky, depending on your institutional wiring. Also, the instruction
part was getting way too time consuming for me. So we have switched the
student access over to STNEasy- their web-based product. The faculty are
content to stay with Express, but the students seem to be way more
comfortable with the web product. It isn't as sophisticated, but seems to
meet what our students need with far less intervention on my part. I did an
introductory session with them in class first, then they are on their own.
It does mean they must remember their password, but we will change
passwords at the end of the semester.

Our costs have dropped tremendously. It was easy for us to drop the paper
at the $14,000 I think we spent back in 1992. We felt we could support a
lot of searching and get no where near that. And we did- our costs ran
$2000-4000/year, with better access. Now with STNEasy, I'm seeing even more
of a drop since a large proportion of that budget was instructional costs
with Express. And again, people are more comfortable using it.

If CAS can ever offer SciFinder at a reasonable price, we will consider.

 Susan W. Cole                                              office (207)
872-3722
 Science Librarian                                 FAX    (207) 872-3287
 Colby College, Science Library             Internet  swcole@colby.edu

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 09:16:09 -0800 (PST)
From: Flora Grabowska 

I made the case at Vassar in 1995 that print CA was expensive and tedious
to use.   The chem department willingly bought my argument and the scenario
since then has been STN after hours.  I offer to do the search for
faculty/students, with faculty/students or they do their own, sometimes
consulting me before or after.  I do about 2 workshops a year for
faculty/students at which time I give out signon id and pws.

Everyone much prefers this to using print CA such that I haven't heard
grumblings about the after 5 pm restriction.   It's no restriction for the
students who are nocturnal creatures anyway.  One faculty member did voice
frustration at being unable to help show that there IS literature on a
subject when a student comes during office hours but manages to limp along
with Medline or Expanded Academic Index as these are usually students in
Intro Chem or has the student make a date with me.  I find that by having
the faculty member/student come between 4.30 -4.45 we usually are done an
STN search by 5.15 p.m and I can usually accommodate on the same day I get
the request.

I don't have the dollar figures but my impression is that we spend less
than $2,000 pa pay-as-you go compared to $18,000 for a print subscription.

Web of Science (nudge nudge!) would also brighten things for the chemists -
and everyone else.  Our chemists are very keen that we get it.  Those of
you who balked at the ISI price earlier this year, please think of moving
your CA print subscription dollars from something not much used to
something that is bound to be used, now that ISI has come back with an
improved (still expensive) price (wink wink, say no more!)