ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries September 1 9 9 7 /5 7 5 r ie at HighWire Press: Inter­ net Im print of the Stanford University Libraries. Access: http:/ Inte /w w w . highw ire.org/. HighWire Press may be a solution to the time-honored Rev problem faced by libraries and other information cen­ ters o f h igh su b sc rip tio n rates o f science, technical, Sara Am and medical (STM) journals. H ighW ire’s m issio n is to “providle] a more direct linkage betw een the writers and readers of scholarly materials … to affect the economics of provision o f schol­ arly information … [and] to build new techno­ logical, economic and programmatic partner­ ships” with other interested parties. Add to this the hope to “ensure that the nascent market­ place … does not develop along the semi- monopolistic lines of current STM publishing” and yo u ’ve got good use of server space. The meat of the project is full-text an d /o r abstract access to 15 STM journals through HighWire’s page. The titles of currently avail­ able journals appear with buttons for browsing th e cu rren t issue, fu tu re co n ten t, an d th e archive, as well as a button for searching ar­ ticles published in that journal in the last year or as far back as 1987, depending on the jour­ nal. At this point there is no searching across multiple journals simultaneously, but a search on one journal can be carried over to another by using the “Try this search in . . pull-down menu on the search results page. The journal titles listed on Highwire’s page are links to the journals’ homepages, which are d esig n ed similarly an d offer brow sing and searching, subscription information and online forms, author instructions, and miscellaneous information. An important note is that some journals are currently offering free trials that will end betw een this fall and January of 1998. From then on, it’s subscribers only. The rates for print subscriptions are net given (with one exception), and most include online ac­ cess in the print rate while ws others have separate su b ­ scriptions for online access only. The Journal o f Neuro­ science Online, Science On­ line, and the Journal o f Bio­ logical Chemistry offer table o, editor of contents, abstracts, and searching without paying for a subscription. Librarians and other information profession­ als with medical o r science programs to sup­ port will also be impressed with H ighw ire’s MEDLINE ac c e ss ( a v a ila b le w ith an y o f H ighw ire’s journal subscriptions), w hich in­ cludes PubMed citations. O ther STM journals, including Blood and the Journal o f Neurophysi­ ology, are on the “Future Sites” list, so access to more journals (hopefully, with free trial peri­ ods) is in the future. The site has a notification sign-up for those desiring to be informed of additions to the active list. Another interesting offering of the site is the “Tips for Better Browsing.” Here you can find the answers to such burning questions as “How do I eliminate screen clutter?” and “How can I make my browser go faster?” Seriously, though, these are all helpful tips that may make using the Net more enjoyable. As for the operation of the HighWire site, it performs beautifully. This reviewer experienced no incidences of downtime or slow response to search queries. The design of the entire site is clean and presents itself clearly, allow- ing easy navigation. The search buttons next to each title link to identical search forms, and the beginning date of each journal’s archive is given prominently, reducing the un­ certainty that can arise w hen dealing with mul­ tiple journals. It is h oped that sites such as this will show traditional publishers that online is w here they should be, possibly with lower rates Sara Amato is automated systems librarian at Central Washington University; samato@tahoma.cwu.edu highwire.org/ mailto:samato@tahoma.cwu.edu 5 7 6 /C&RL News for even w ider access.—Kirsten Tozer, Central Washington University; tozerz@tahoma.cwu.edu PubMed. Access.- http://w w w .ncbi.nlm .nih. gov/PubM ed/. PubMed is a free, W eb-based search service that provides access to MEDLINE, a database of more than nine million citations to articles in more than 5,000 biomedical journals, in many instances dating back to 1965. Many records include abstracts. MEDLINE and PubMed are created and sponsored by the National Library of Medicine. MEDLINE has long been one of the major resources for searching the health and life sciences literature, and the PubMed inter­ face provides a simple interface to harness this powerful tool. The site’s designers encourage searching in a basic free text style through a blank box for term entry. Authors’ last names, journal titles, and subject headings are among the fields included in the basic search. Because of this approach, searches using common terms can retrieve thousands o f records. A simple search on cancer retrieved more than 880,000 records. However, mixed with the simple search term input is a certain amount of intelligent sup­ port. For instance, the ca n ce r search was auto­ matically expanded to include the official the­ saurus term for cancer, neoplasms. Assistance in developing more sophisticated search strate­ gies is available with site documentation indi­ cating that truncation is su p p o rted , p h rase searching can be imposed, and Boolean and field searching are also possible. A journal browser also assists in expanding cryptically abbreviated journal titles. Another important feature is that of search expansion; each cita­ tion offers a link to related articles. Although providing MEDLINE access could be considered PubMed’s main function, access to additional information is incorporated into the system. A special prepublication process means that PubMed includes in-process citations that are not yet available in MEDLINE and ad­ ditional citations to some journals that are nor­ mally only partially in d ex ed by MEDLINE. PubMed also supports searching of several ge­ netic databases, including G enbank’s DNA and p r o te i n s e q u e n c e s , a d a ta b a s e o f 3-D biom olecule structures, and a com plete ge­ nomes database. Numerous hyperlinks between sequence records, MEDLINE records, and even some full-text electronic journals are incorpo­ rated into the system, resulting in a singular know ledge resource for genetic information. While PubMed is a singular resource for health care professionals and biomedical re­ searchers and a significant resource for the gen­ eral public, it should be borne in mind that the information provided is mainly citations to tech­ nical literature and research data that are use­ ful only to experts. None of the journals in­ cluded in the system is written for the general reader, and consumer health information and literature other than journals are not covered. What the general reader can expect to find here is cutting-edge information about new break­ throughs in medical and basic research from the same sources that are available to doctors and researchers.—Karla L. Hahn, University o f M aryland The Wars for Viet Nam , 1945-1975. Access: h ttp ://w w w .v assar.e d u /v ie tn am / index.html. This site was developed as course material for Professor Robert K. Brigham’s senior seminar given at Vassar College on the wars in Viet­ nam. The main “overview” essay begins with the Geneva Peace Accords signed by France and Vietnam in 1954 and continues with the growing involvement of the United States and up to the fall o f Saigon in 1975. The essay is objective and informatively written in a style accessible to high school or college students. The overview section contains hypertext links to full-text documents, presidential archives, and other related sites. Included are pertinent docum ents such as the Gulf o f Tonkin Resolu­ tion and the Paris Accords, as well as several Vietnamese docum ents translated into English by Brigham. The hypertext links have been chosen carefully and used judiciously to pro­ vide a documentary history o f this tumultuous period for Vietnam and the United States. Small graphics are included, but there are no audio or video clips. Additional sections include a list of the 20 full-text docum ents available and a com prehensive list o f additional Vietnam-re­ lated links, including military maps, Vietnam veteran Web sites, and Vietnamese cultural Web sites. This site is part of Vassar College’s Cool School project that highlights “outstanding” edu­ cational Web sites for high school students and teachers. However, many of the sites, such as The Wars for Viet Nam, are also appropriate as supplemental material at the college level. The main Cool School can be accessed at: http:// vassar.coolschool.edu.— Robert L. Battenfeld, Long Island University ■ mailto:tozerz@tahoma.cwu.edu http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih http://www.vassar.edu/vietnam/ September 1 9 9 7 / 577