Most publishers now have services that offer individual PDFs of articles
for sale.  If the article being requested needs to be of "original"
quality and not a photocopy, then the individual PDF purchase should be
the primary means of filling the request.  This is but one reason why
the majority of online journal publisher licenses prohibit licensees to
use original PDFs for purpose of filling ILL requests.  Sending (or
requesting) an original PDF file is the equivalent of asking lending
libraries to razor out a paper article from their journal and send it,
because a mere photocopy is not acceptable.  If libraries start freely
distributing original PDFs from their licensed journals, they are in
direct competition with publishers who wish to sell individual content.
The real problem here is that publishers charge WAY too much for
individual PDF files (as high as $35 or more).  If online journal
publishers would adopt a pricing structure that was more in the
iTunes/music model, they would sell a lot more content, and libraries
wouldn't be facing the ethical dilemma surrounding requests to
distribute content in violation of our licenses.

JL

Jonathan Lord / Collection Development Librarian
University of Virginia Health Sciences Library
[log in to unmask] / 434-924-0059
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Medical Libraries Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of McLAUGHLIN,LOUISE K
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 12:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Chat scanning and pdfs

Would you be willing to check the license of each DOCLINE that you
request to see if that journal allows electronic transmission of
downloaded articles? We are a small library that fills about 1000
DOCLINES a year. We have nothing fancy--no Ovid, no A to Z. I could not
tell you, journal by journal, which titles have global or specific-year
restrictions for e-sending. So I do the download, print, send routine.
If the article contains illustrations, I will often scan it in two
modes. Want to hear my comments on having large (>2 MB) files bouncing
back to me because I tried to scan well??? And for several, hard-to-scan
journals, I append a message offering to snail mail the article if the
scan is not clear. 

I agree with a prior poster who mentioned that scan quality often has to
do with the recipient. I will check a scan before emailing, print a
sample page, and be pleased with the results from our brand new, high
quality printer/copier/scanner, only to have the recipient describe it
as illegible. 

Good quality copies are available through snail mail. Maybe an option
would be to provide the scan and/or supplement with a snail mailed copy.


Louise McLaughlin M.S., M.P.S.
Assistant Librarian
Woman's Hospital Medical Library
P. O. Box 95009
Baton Rouge, LA  70895-9009
225.924.8462
225.924.8467 fax