In this day and age with all of the web 2.0 stuff you would think there would be some v-e-r-y simple service.


Basically we just wanted something like a web page where you check the box to the journal, enter your email address or right click on the RSS button and voila, your table of contents arrive with the next issue. The user then clicks on the citation title and gets institution's full text or document delivery request. Easy squeezy.


I have yet to find that easy service and I believe it doesn't exsist. Please prove me wrong. Better yet if you have any sort of technical skills, build a mashup that all medical libraries can use.


Until there is an easy solution this is what I have learned.


The folks over at UAB Lister Hill Library have created their own method of emailing the table of contents of approximately 150 journals using an Excel spreadsheet with the URL and an embedded formula. The patrons who use it like it. It takes the the library 6 hours a week to do which is less than their previous methods for doing TOCs.


However, we were looking for something that included more than 150 titles and was more patron initiated and required little to no time on the part of the library staff (except for processing document delivery requests).



PubMed MyNCBI
Pros:
1. PubMed updated very quickly. Search results will usually be papers accepted as epubs ahead of print. Great way to get the latest literature.
2. Emailed delivered without problem (i.e. wasn't eaten by the email spam eaters)


Cons:
1. Delivery can only be to one email, so results can be emailed to patron and secretary nor can librarian add multiple docs to one giant email toc distribution list.
2. Library can't always get epub ahead of print.
3. Can't get the full text through the link in the email. The email does not pass along your MyNCBI access.
4. Not necessarily the table of contents, since PubMed does not index everything in all journals. You might be missing certain articles, letters, editorials, etc.


Ovid Medline
Pros:
1. Results can be emailed to multiple recipents.
2. Very easy to set up
3. Links to the full text work and bring up the full text or the document request form.


Cons:
1. Ovid receives data from PubMed so it is always behind PubMed
2. Ovid receives data from PubMed so you have the same problem with indexing and the table contents as you do with PubMed.
3. You have to save the search. So patrons either must save the search under their account, or the librarian must save the search.


Ovid Journal Database
Pros:
1. Results can be emailed to multiple recipents.
2. Very easy to set up
3. Provides the true table of contents, so you are getting the letters, editorials, etc.
4. Links to the full text work and bring up the full text or the document request form.
5. OvidSP does not require you to save the search. The patron just puts their email in the box.


Cons:
1. Within OvidSP you have to scroll through all of the journals to get to the right one.
2. Journals are MISSING. For some reason Ovid doesn't provide the table of contents to Springer and Elsevier titles (and perhaps others).
3. Gets only the table of contents. If you want epubs ahead of print you have to create a search.


Publisher's TOC Alert Service
Pros:
1. Very easy, just put your email address in and you get the TOC with the next issue.


Cons:
2. Email systems have a tendency sic the spam eaters on these email because it is mis-identified as spam.
3. You have to visit multiple sites to get all of the journals you want.
4. The publisher's site may not be the way the institution gets full text access. If that is the case then the full text links do not work.


EBSCO I am investigating that now. I will wait until I get results before I make any comments on that. Stay tuned.