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(Contact Info: larry at larryblakeley dot com)

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I manage this Web site and the following Web sites: Leslie (Blakeley) Adkins - my oldest daughter

Lori Ann Blakeley (June 20, 1985 - May 4, 2005) - my middle daughter

Evan Blakeley- my youngest child

"Elsevier doesn't write a single article," said Dr. Lawrence H. Pitts, a neurosurgeon at the University of California at San Francisco and chairman of the faculty senate of the 10-campus system. "Faculty write the articles for them, faculty review the articles for them and faculty mostly edit the journals for them, and then we get to buy the journals back from a company that makes a very large profit.."... But more and more academics are viewing traditional publishers as obstacles to wide dissemination of studies paid for by public monies. - Pamela Burdman, "A Quiet Revolt Puts Costly Journals on Web," The New York Times, June 26, 2004.

"Ensure that the nascent marketplace for electronic communication among scholars does not develop along the semi-monopolistic lines of current STM publishing." - HighWire Press, the largest archive of free full-text science on Earth! As of 6/20/04, we are assisting in the online publication of 734,617 free full-text articles and 1,765,922 total articles.

...faculty on some campuses have resolved to boycott Elsevier if reasonable rates cannot be negotiated. Other universities and library consortia around the country are also in the throes of assessing what they can afford and what they will have to cancel due to price increases and budget constraints. - Paula J. Hane, "Cornell and Other University Libraries to Cancel Elsevier Titles," Information Today, Inc., November 17, 2003.

"On March 16, 2004 representatives from the nation’s leading not-for-profit medical/scientific societies and publishers announced their commitment to providing free access and wide dissemination of published research finding.....

As not-for-profit publishers, we have introduced and will continue to support the following forms of free access:

Washington D.C. Principles For Free Access to Science, "A Statement from Not-for-Profit Publishers," March 16, 2004. PDF of statement here.

"With the Open Access movement (for further research see Peter Suber here) see bringing Web-based scholarship to increased prominence, leading A&I services that have long provided the access tools to identify scholarship face new challenges. Thomson ISI (http://www.isinet.com), a longtime leader in netting scholarship, primarily through citation patterns, has launched a new initiative to handle this problem. It will collaborate with NEC Laboratories America (http://www.nec-labs.com) to create a comprehensive, multidisciplinary citation index for Web-based scholarly resources. Due out in early 2005, the new Web Citation Index will tap a number of technologies developed by NEC, primarily the “autonomous citation indexing” tools of NEC’s CiteSeer software. CiteSeer (http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/cs) has been highly praised for its strength at monitoring and connecting research for computer literature." - Barbara Quint, "Thomson ISI to Track Web-Based Scholarship with NEC’s CiteSeer," Information Today, March 1, 2004.

March 15, 2004 — After 2 years of planning, development, and initial testing by a select group of about 20 university libraries, Elsevier has finally made an official announcement of the first fully functioning version of Scopus, its highly anticipated, full-text linking, abstracting-and-indexing database. The company is now providing access to another 30 academic libraries for final testing and user trials, will add more libraries over the next 6 months, and expects to have the commercial release available by Q4 2004. Scopus is designed to be an all science, comprehensive access point for a library, with coverage of 13,000 titles from over 4,000 STM publishers, plus coverage of over 100 open access journals by the summer. Scopus also simultaneously searches the scientific Web using Elsevier’s science-only Internet search engine, Scirus. The company aimed to make the Scopus service “as easy to use as Google,” with fewer clicks to the full text than any service available. - Paula J. Hane, "Elsevier Announces Scopus Service," Information Today, Inc., March 15, 2004.

Scopus http://www.scopus.com/scopus/home.url

This is from their marketing homepage for Scopus: Easily find relevant results from over 13,600 peer-reviewed titles. The world’s largest abstract database of scientific literature is now available. Librarians helped develop it and researchers who’ve tested it say it’s great.Scopus is about making searching easier and research more efficient. Built over two years together with more than 300 researchers and librarians from 21 research institutions worldwide, Scopus allows researchers to focus on the outcomes of their research, rather than on operating the database to find the literature they need.

Scopus Information Web site http://www.info.scopus.com/

The Scopus search engine is also owned by Elsevier: it's called Scirus (go here for more info on Scirus http://www.larryblakeley.com/academic_research_search/academic_and_research_search.htm)

Abstract

This paper describes how the User-Centered Design (UCD) method has been applied to the development of a large bibliographic search and navigation system called Scopus, which is due to be launched in the final quarter of 2004.

In cooperation with 21 research institutions, more than 300 researchers and librarians have participated in numerous rounds of onsite and remote testing of various concepts, using mock-ups and functional prototypes of the product. The verbal and behavioral feedback from these user test sessions was employed to acquire a detailed understanding of the scientists' information needs, tasks and workflow. This understanding is fundamental to content, functionality and design decisions.

The University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh was one of these partners, and in this paper the UCD process is discussed in general and with specifics from both the developer standpoint and the librarian experience.

- "Scopus White Paper Series, Number One: Applying the User-Centered Design (UCD) process to the development of a large bibliographic navigation tool: a partnership between librarian, researcher and developer," S. P de Groot MSc., User Interface Architect, Scopus. Amsterdam, The Netherlands and A. E Knapp PhD., Assistant University Librarian, University of Pittsburgh. PA, USA, Elsevier, June 16, 2004

Directory: http://www.larryblakeley.com/Articles

File Name: scopus_wp1_usability_testing20040616

Abstract

The trajectory through the peer-review, publishing and library selection procedures gives "library" information a dimension of validity that is often too easily taken for granted. Information found in an academic library is there for a reason, and can be considered reliable, although at times it might be difficult to find. Traditionally, it has been the job of experts such as research librarians to find, evaluate and select the most reliable and relevant material for scientists.

This paper discusses some ways in which highly structured data can support searching and other tasks involved in finding relevant scientific literature.

- "Scopus White Paper Series, Number Two: The value of structure in searching scientific literature," G. Griffiths, Publishing Technology Manager, Scopus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Elsevier, July 30, 2004

Directory: http://www.larryblakeley.com/Articles

File Name: scopus_wp2_structure_search20040730

The aim of this study was to itemize the full range of functionality aspects possibly available on A&I database platforms in order for librarians to facilitate exact evaluation of A&I database platforms in terms of the functionality they offer.

In general, libraries select Abstract & Indexing databases by assessing the fullness of content coverage and its relevancy to their user communities. In the database selection process the two major decision-making factors are content and price; the functionality of the platform is often considered at a later phase.

This study provides librarians with the following tools to support the database decision-making process in the functionality evaluation phase:

- A description of various policy options

- An overview of the trends

- A checklist of functionality with an industry

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ance indicator

- "Scopus White Paper Series, Number Three: A report on the functionality of abstract & indexing (A&I) database platforms: recent developments, library policies and a new evaluation technique," M. van der Graaf, Pleiade Management and Consultancy BV, August 20, 2004

Directory: http://www.larryblakeley.com/Articles

File Name: scopus_wp3_aI_functionality_evaluation20040820

 

This company is not doing bad. Especially, considering that a significant portion of the research reports of American scholars/researchers are funded by the United States taxpayor through our fidiciary - The United States Government! - Larry Blakeley

 

The Thomson Corporation, Financial Report (2003), PDF here with bookmarks and highlighting for quick review. These people aren't hurting. In fact, Kenneth R. Thomson controls about 69% of the common stock of the company. - Larry Blakeley

 

Reed Elsevier, Financial Report (2003), PDF here. These people aren't hurting either.

So, the most successful researchers are fortunate enough to have their research reports published with the likes of Reed-Elsevier and The Thomson Corporation, who are both foreign companies, by the way. Then these companies corner the information and knowledge market generated by these professors and turn right around and sell it back to the universities on a subscription basis - possibly, only because they are more organized in information management, search, and retrieval, or possibly, the professors doing this are focused more on tenure and promotions, and other perks that come with scholarship recognized in these circles of intellectuals. - Larry Blakeley

Possibly, Professor Joseph Alois Schumpeter's prediction that "the fall of capitalism would be destroyed by its successes. Capitalism would spawn, he believed, a large intellectual class that made its living by attacking the very bourgeois system of private property and freedom so necessary for the intellectual class's existence."