My beef with researching
March 18th, 2008 by Danny ZachariasOh to be a student of the hard sciences and be able to use a database like Pubmed.
For those who don’t know what PubMed is, think of combining RAMBI, IXtheo, BIiBIL, BILDI, and ATLA all together into one delightful database complete with abstracts. But not only that — the actual PDF’s of the articles are there too. It is the one-stop shop for your research. But oh well, I’m a biblical studies student. Now I realize that this is a 21st century rant and I should be grateful that actual bibliography collection takes me a fraction of the time that it did for you old timer’s that studied before the 90’s, but I like to have my cake and eat it too. If the technology is there then that’s what I would like to use.
Now I could be wrong, but I think the vast majority of us use ATLA for our research. Let me outline some of the regular scenarios when finding articles on ATLA.
- I find an article from CBQ or something else that is actually stored in ATLA(S). So I can download the PDF immediately. SWEEET!
- I find an article that ATLA does not store. So I then go to my school’s library database, search the periodical list for the journal. A few things will happen:
- my library will have electronic access to the journal, like to JSTOR, and I go to that database, search for the article title, and download it.
- my library has electronic access to the journal. I go to the database, but they only started digitizing them 3 years ago so my article isn’t online.
- My library has access to an electronic database for the journal, but the older volumes of the journal require a further level of access that my university doesn’t have.
- My library only has the journal hard bound and I have to go down and photocopy it. How 1990’s is that!!
Now I realize that not every article will always be online now, I’ll have to wait another decade or so for that. But here is what I would like to have happen: I go to ATLA and search for stuff. I find an article and either:
- ATLA has it stored as a PDF and is available for immediate download or,
- ATLA provides the DOI to the article online
That’s it! How great would that be!
The DOI (Digital Object Identifier), it is the key that few in biblical studies have latched on to yet. It is a permanent and stable URL for an article — not a website but the actual article. Imagine how nice it would be to find the article you want in ATLA, open the DOI and BAM! you are taken directly to where the article is. The database would recognize your university proxy and the article is there for you to use. Most major article databases and publishers have begun or are already finished assigning DOI’s to their article databases, yet I do not know of any biblical studies bibliographic database (RAMBI, IXtheo, BIiBIL, BILDI, ATLA, etc) that have begun to make these a regular part of the citation information. It is such a great idea that I told Ebsco they need to start updating their records to add the DOI’s. Unfortunately, ATLA doesn’t work that way. They only add the content that the publishers give to them. dang it! So it is up to you publishers (and I know every self-respecting biblical studies publisher reads my o so important blog posts) to provide the DOI’s to ATLA, AND make sure that you tell them you want it as part of the citation. And you also have to provide the DOI’s for your archive - or ask ATLA to do it. That is not as hard as it sounds, because crossref.org has a DOI resolver that will do the work for you. Lastly, biblical studies publishers need to get on the DOI bandwagon if they haven’t already. Every article that is available online from a publisher should have a DOI — this includes those housed by ATLA or those hosted on a publisher site (like the new BBR archive online for instance). I thought of starting a petition to get ATLA to add DOI’s to their database, then realized how lame a petition like that would be. I’ll settle for whining and nagging, and hope that others will whine and nag too. Nagging and whining is what gets things done, trust me!
Cheers!
March 18th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Although an active member of ATLA, I don’t pretend to represent any kind of official response. However, I have done some exploration of DOIs for a new journal project and we found that DOI’s cost money . A good many useful things in life do cost money but the cost of DOI may be a barrier for some publishers. But unless the DOI becomes ubiquitous, you will no way to know a given article is “undigitized” or simply lacking a DOI.
Another approach which a number of libraries use (and which EBSCO, ATLA, and others support) is OpenURL. Rather than a DOI number which assigned to a specific article, a special link or OpenURL is created which contains the information (journal, title, page numbers, etc.) needed to find it in another database. Libraries then create a database of the electronic journals contained in different database products so that if you find an article in ATLA, you can click on the OpenURL resolver which will “know” that the article is in JSTOR (which your library subscribes to) and be able to pass that OpenURL to JSTOR to get you directly to the article. DOIs can be a part of OpenURLs but the system doesn’t rely on each article having a DOI in order to accomplish much of what you desire.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Yep, it’s frustrating but I, for one, sometimes turn green with envy to see you folks engaging a professional literature that stretches for thousands of years.
With your blessings come also trials.
March 19th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Danny, I am on the editorial team for a Journal (not primarily Biblical Studies, but general theological) we have begun making back issues available through Lulu. How in practice would we set about doing what you want.
I am thoroughly convinced by what you say, I’m just not technical enough to know how the system actually works… who assigns DOIs, how do we get them, then when we’ve got them where do we stick them?
March 19th, 2008 at 1:35 am
HI Tim, glad I convinced at least one person
DOI’s cost a bit. Basically, an organization or publisher pays for the right to assign DOI’s from crossref.org. Then those who assign DOI’s are responsible for sending Crossref.org (an easy upload) the DOI = URL location.
Tim, what journal are you talking about? Second, is it indexed by ATLA or any other indexing site?
March 19th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
March 19, 2008
Mr. Danny Zacharias
c/o The Deinde Blog
submitted electronically
Dear Mr. Zacharias:
I am writing to officially respond on behalf of the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) regarding recent postings regarding the ATLA Religion Database and DOI issues on your blog:
http://www.deinde.org/blog/
To the best of our knowledge, we were not contacted by you before you posted these comments and then directly asked the readers to “nag and whine” to us.
In fact, if you would have contacted us in advance, we would have told you that we recently published some information in our Feb. 2008 newsletter that directly addresses your concerns:
Beginning in January 2008, ATLA’s Religion Database (RDB) will include any DOI (Digital Object Identifier) data that some journals are now using. The data will be coded in the MARC 21 024 tag, subfield a, with a subfield 2 code: doi as well. This may prove helpful to users who link to full text versions. This data is expected to appear in the summer 2008 data release. There are no plans at this time to add such data retrospectively. ATLA Newsletter, vol. 55 no. 2 (Feb. 2008), 14
In the future, I encourage you and your colleagues to contact us directly with any product questions in advance of any speculation.
We pride ourselves on both the quality of our products and our responsiveness.
Please contact me with any additional concerns or questions.
Thanks for your cooperation.
Kind regards,
Margot Lyon, MSI
Director of Business Development
American Theological Library Association
http://www.atla.com
300 SOUTH WACKER DRIVE STE 2100, CHICAGO, IL 60606
Toll Free 1-888-665-ATLA (North America)
+1-312-454-5100 (Outside North America)
Fax: +1-312-454-5505
e-mail: mlyon@atla.com
March 19th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Danny,
While I would be delighted to have such access, the reality is that the technology and time needed to make it happen is not cost effective currently or in the near future for older items (most anything created before electronic records became normative).
For classics (books, journal articles, blogs, etc.), the future you describe will happen because it is worth the effort. Further, Google and others are trying to make it happen for other stuff too with their scholar program.
However, the reality is that older, small run, obscure items will always be found only in libraries (and some small specialty bookstores) on old dusty shelves that require student/scholar time and effort.
Those of us in religious studies (I have been a such a student and now serve as a librarian in a theological library) have learned that old doesn’t mean outdated or irrelevant, just old, ancient, and undiscovered. And what is old sometimes becomes new if we are good enough scholars to find it and use it.
Soooo for the 4-6 page paper and many of the 10-20 page papers, online electronic resources found in DOI or PDF will do, but for those of us inspired to look further, to faithfully engage our rich and chaotic traditions, then some old fashioned pounding of the pavement or at least searching the stacks will probably be required. And the treasures found there are sometimes very precious indeed.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
An OpenURL link resolver pretty much takes care of this issue for us.
For the most part in biblical & theological studies full-text content is contained within aggregated databases. E-journals are few and DOIs are of limited use. Of course this could change.
From crossref.org (the org. that manages the DOI system):
DOIs point to the authoritative version of content on the publisher’s website and to publisher-designated resources. Yet for the user working in an institutional context, it is often useful to be directed to other resources. For example, the institution may not subscribe to the e-journal itself but may still be able to offer the user access to the desired article through an aggregated database or through print holdings. In addition, the library may wish to provide a range of linking options beyond what is available at the publisher’s website.
In other words, DOIs work fine when you can go to the publisher Web site to access/buy content, but when you need to access content in aggregated databases subscribed to by your institution, you need an OpenURL link resolver.
March 20th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Thanks, I’ll explore it further. The journal is called Colloquium. It is indexed in:
* Religion Index One: Periodicals
* Index to Book Reviews in Religion
* Religion Indexes
* RIO/RIT/IBRR 1975- on CD-ROM
* ATLA Religion Databases on CD-ROM
* Australian Public Affairs Information Service
* Ulrich’s International Periodicals Directory
* Australasian Religion Index
It is listed by the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training as a peer reviewed academic research journal.
Though it is a print journal it has a website at http://colloquiumjournal.org/
March 25th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Danny,
I say amen to that! How frustrating is it when you find the perfect article for your research, but having it right at your fingertips are unable to actually see the full-text!
April 30th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
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