Electronic Document Delivery

Оleg P. Rozhkov
Chelyabinsk State Medical Academy

Recently a lot has been said about the informatisation of society (community). The use of computers and other new information equipment has radically changed the image of libraries as many of them have become large information centres. These technologies have not bypassed the library of the Chelyabinsk State Medical Academy. All the library processes are automated, an electronic catalogue has been created, the state-of-the-art equipment (CD-ROM, multimedia workstations, Internet connection) is being actively implemented.

In 1993 the library started working with biomedical databases on CD-ROM: MEDLINE 1993-2000, Russian Medicine 1986-1998, New England Journal of Medicine 1991-1993, American Family Physician 1986-1993 etc.

Unfortunately only very few CD-ROM publications contain full-text information, in most cases there is a bibliographic description and brief presentation of a problem in the form of a review or an abstract. This relates to foreign publications such as Medline, Embase, and the quality of the abstract depends on the manufacturer of this or that database. Full-text publications on CD-ROM, such as ADONIS, OVID contain complete texts, but have poorly developed search facilities and are quite expensive. To improve the information service to research and development activity in the Academy the library acquired Cocrane library which includes reviews of research on different areas of medicine. All these electronic publications partially compensate the lack of acquisition of foreign publications.

The development and implementation of the Internet technologies is present day reality. Many academic libraries of the city have Internet connection. The most reliable way of information search in WWW is to know where the information is located. WWW - browsers allow searching for information in the Internet, but for this it is necessary to know the addresses of relevant servers or search engines. The search for information on medicine poses an exceptional number of problems. We need clearly structured networks to overcome this barrier. Due to a number of reasons we chose the database system STN-INTERNATIONAL. The library of the Chelyabinsk State Academy has access to the STN-INTERNATIONAL network via the specialised class of the training and methodical centre STN- INTERNATIONAL of the Chelyabinsk information centre on science and technology.

Nevertheless the library encountered some problems in the STN network:

1. Commercial discounts are not applied to medical databases.
2. Most of the information relates to patents and technical issues, there is only a small proportion of full text information.
3. We can only receive copies of documents from the science and technology library in Cologne, which does not have a lot of books on medicine. The experience of network use allows us to use some of the services in the library of the Cheliabinsk State Medical Academy.

Since the library got a dedicated line to the Internet it can send and receive large amounts of information. So at first glance the organisation of EDD services did not seem to be a difficult issue. We studied several domestic and foreign systems that use this technology. Finally we chose the software package used by the State Central Medical Library based on the Ariel system.

The Ariel complex includes computer, printer, scanner and Ariel software. The system supports two way document exchange.

The system has been used in the USA since 1985 and is recommended for Russian libraries.

The obstacles to the use of Ariel in all the Russian libraries are the high price of the product and the low quality of telecommunication channels in this country.

A lot of major libraries only use Ariel for browsing and printing out files, but use e-mail for document delivery.

Currently the Central Medical Library Web-server and DIT-M company use the OPAC-R system – an interactive access catalogue of domestic medical resources.

The OPAC-R system on the DIT-M server is presented as an inter-library on-line centre for the access to the following databases: Russian Medicine, RNL, Arts Library and the full text magazine "Medical Education". The system supports both paid and free access. As a permanent subscriber to CD-ROM publications by the Russian Medicine the library of the Chelyabinsk Medical Academy has 50 % discounts on the use of OPAC-R databases. The Central Medical Library and the library of the Chelyabinsk State Medical Academy have a contract for information services. After search in the "Russian Medicine" database on CD-ROM or in the OPAC-R system the document is ordered either by e-mail or through the ON-LINE ordering system. The customer settlement transactions are carried out on-line.

We have implemented a system of document delivery after prior search in the electronic catalogues of the system. The documents are delivered by e-mail, ordinary mail or ftp. This technology allows the running of the service without Ariel software, which only supports two-way document exchange. The output format is TIFF (multi-page TIFF-files). This format supports high quality presentation of the original without the file size increase. Other formats (TXT, PDF, RTF) are used depending on the technical possibilities and the customer needs. This helps to solve at least one issue: access to domestic information resources. Currently the IT department is responsible for technical solutions for EDD, in future this will be done by the automated information search department and the ILL department.

As an alternative to Ariel we have installed a demo-version of d2 software developed by the KODIS company. Currently we are looking into buying the full system. The software will allow us to work with many of the libraries using the Ariel technology. Our future plans include signing contracts with the State Historical Library, INION, State Public Science and Technology Library and the Russky Courier service.

The next issue we need to solve is access to foreign full text information resources. A lot of foreign publishers such as Springer, Elsevier etc. market their resources in this country. A current project of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research includes provision of access to the digital library with a facility to order full texts from Medline, EMBASE and other medical databases.

We can now use the system of ordering and receipt of full text documents from the German Medical Library in Cologne. The ordered documents are received within 5-10 days in PDF or TIFF format. If a file is smaller that 2-3 MB then it can easily be sent by e-mail. If the size is larger ordinary mail is preferable. In 2000 we have received 65 documents from that library.

Under a partnership programme between the Cheliabinsk Medical Academy and the University of Rochester we now have access to the digital library of the University. The digital library uses the OVID system and has access to a lot of medical journals. The access to the system is provided in real time, which allows us to process user orders quicker. Documents are received in text or graphic formats.

In conclusion I should like to emphasise that in order to implement the EDD services on a massive scale we need to set up an association which could tackle legal, financial, copyright and other issues.

References

1. О. Rozhkov, L. Egorov , R. Chaptsov The STN INTERNATIONAL network in the library of Cheliabinsk State Medical Academy // Infor.- 1998.- N1.- P.36
2. О. Rozhkov The STN INTERNATIONAL network in the library of Cheliabinsk State Medical Academy // http://www.lib.tu-chel.ac.ru/

About the author

Oleg Petrovich Rozhkov is deputy director on automation of the library of the Cheliabinsk State Medical Academy.
454092 Cheliabinsk, ul. Vorovskogo 64 room. 91
tel. (3512) 34-04-36
E-mail: libr@vita.chel.su, oleg@vita.chel.su
URL: http://www.vita.chel.su