Free Subscriptions to Cell for Duke Faculty

Since the Library subscribes to the online version of Cell, Duke faculty qualify for the Cell Affiliated Subscription Program. This provides Duke faculty with a free personal print subscription to Cell.

Visit the Free Subscription Link to get your free copy.

Cell Press, an imprint of Elsevier, is offering this free print subscription. As a benefit of the site license to Cell Online managed by the Library, any researcher, student, or faculty member in North America affiliated with our institution is entitled to receive a print subscription – normally a $179 value – absolutely free. To sign up for the offer, use the link above or go to www.Cell.com/freesub.

For more information about the Cell Affiliated Subscription Program, please see the Cell FAQ.

How many medical journals does the Library receive?

While we boast that Duke Medicine has access to over 3,000 titles here is the truth.

We have paid subscriptions to only 1,200 of the journals we list on our e-journal page. That's all the our existing budget can afford. There are over 5,000 biomedical journals in Medline/PubMed alone. And while we do not need all of them, we have gone from a high of 2,800 journal subscriptions down to 1,200 over the past 10 years due to rising costs of electronic journals and budget cuts.

Fortunately the main campus library system (Perkins, Bostock and their branches) pay for another 1,400 titles that are health related or relevant to biomedical research. When our Library could not pick up the cost of some major journals collections, such as Nature, the main campus has stepped in and paid the annual contract fees. The Medical Center Library has tried to provide at least partial payment for these collections when the budget allows.

Main campus also pays for a number of general academic databases, such as Academic Premier, that have full-text journal articles. Due to prior budget cuts, we cancelled many of our subscriptions and now rely on those databases for electronic access to many biomedical journals.

What's the problem with relying on general databases for journals? Relying on databases of full-text articles can be dangerous. Publishers often decide to pull their journals out and then we lose access to the articles. Since we do not have the funding to replace them, we lose all access to those journals completely. Also libraries review databases all the time since they can change or better ones are available. If a decision is made to cancel a database, then all the full-text journals in that database can be lost.

What about free open access journals? There are a number of open access journals, but only a small portion is immediately and freely available to the public. Most highly ranked journals have 6 to 12 month embargoes or never make their journals freely available without a subscription. We do list the free medical journals on the e-journal page, but most are not considered top tier journals.

Yes, we could wait for 6 to 12 months for things to become free (and we have made those unpopular decisions several times). But can Duke clinicians and researchers really wait 6 to 12 months or longer to have access to cutting-edge information?

The reality is that the Library's journal collection is in trouble and will continue to be so as long as our budget remains flat and we have to make cuts to offset the yearly price increases. Decreases in our funding simply exacerbate an onging problem.

Certainly not a pretty picture, but the reality.

Funding Available for UpToDate / Other Budget News

Good news! The School of Medicine has found funding for one more year for UpToDate.

However, this funding is available for only one year and we will need to find additional funding when UpToDate is renewed in July 2008. The Duke community needs to work with the libray on finding continued funding for this important resource.

Surveys about UpToDate and MDConsult were sent to medical, nursing and PA students. While most students would choose UpToDate over MDConsult, the vast majority responded that it was important to keep both resources. The Library will continue MDConsult over the next year.

The Library is still undergoing a budget cut of $100,000. To offset this loss of funding, we will be dropping several smaller databases over the next year, purchasing 50% fewer books (the book budget was cut in half) and cancelling about $37,000 in journals.

We will be posting a list of cancelled journals in June. In addition we will be conducting an indepth review of our entire journal collection to identify other titles that can be cancelled if additional funding is not found to cover UpToDate and standard journal increases.

We will be contacting department and division chairs about the journal review process, asking them and their faculty to provide input into the priorities for keeping and cancelling subscriptions.

I want to thank all who sent me emails with their concerns and who took time to answer the student survey.

Exploring New Technologies

Pat Thibodeau, Associate Dean of Library Services and Archives, describes some of the new technologies that we have been trying out to enhance our services, as well as our internal operations. read more...

History Website Redesigned!

The History of Medicine Collections Website has been completely redesigned. Your old favorites are still included but we've added some new goodies too. Come take a look and discover the history of medicine through our rich and unique collections. read more...

Comments about UpToDate and the Library Budget

The Library wants to thank everyone for their excellent responses to our posting about the proposed cancellation of UpToDate and the Library's additional budget cuts. Instead of posting the comments back to the blog, we are collecting them and will be sharing them with administrators involved in discussions about the Library's budget.

So while the comments will not be posted on the blog, they are being reviewed by the Library and shared with others.