Health Librarians' Interest Group

This meeting was opened with a discussion of upcoming offerings/conferences of the Medical Library Association and it's Upstate New York  and Ontario Chapter.

One participant had a question about embargoed articles and accessing them by interlibrary loan or other methods. There is trouble with Docline still routing ILL requests to libraries that list an embargo for those items.

Also discussed was trouble some are having with accessing the Cochrane database by various publishers. Some have trouble with Ovid's access, but Wiley works well.

A question about whether all SUNY libraries have the same access to materials was answered as no.

Some are having trouble ordering print books from Rittenhouse, and it was discussed whether they and other publishers are ceasing to deal with print volumes. Some titles are not available for institutional purchase - only individuals. In response, there were 2 alternative suggestions -
some order through Matthews Books, and some order through Amazon.

What everyone feels is a cost per use that is acceptable for an online title. Some said that $20 per use was their limit, others had higher numbers. It was noted that a triple-digit amount would target a title for elimination.

It was mentioned that some are have trouble getting usage metrics from AAFP. One person said they go directly through SUSHI for metrics. Two people said it’s much more convenient than asking for metrics from vendors or logging in manually.

Bundle deals and whether certain publishers were good about swapping out titles that were not being used were discussed.

Open access and transformative titles were discussed.

No one was currently using patron-driven acquisitions.