Posts are written by library staff and reflect their personal opinions not necessarily those of MSK.
EndNote offers many more citation styles (AKA output styles) than are built-in to the program by default. If you don’t see the specific journal style that you need, please contact the MSK reference staff for assistance (phone: 212.639.7439).
You can also register for an EndNote workshop if you would like to learn more about this bibliographic management tool.
In 2012, the British Library changed the way it ran it’s Document Supply operations – “to protect the library from claims of copyright infringement” – dramatically limiting how we ordered hard-to-find materials from them. Previously, the British Library was an incredible resource for otherwise impossible to locate information. Of course, this is a much bigger problem for independent researchers than for those at institutions without resources like MSK Library’s. In Licensed to Fill?, Teresa Hackett shows the enormous impact of these changes have had on accessibility to information worldwide (including how it grew larger over the years) and argues that international document delivery should be protected by exemptions in copyright law. The move at the British Library to a publisher licensing model drastically decreased access and prevented vital information from getting to those who need it. I am glad to see this article and have a better understanding of the larger problem. Hat tip to @ALA_Carrie.
It may seem like a long time ago, but it has only been ten days since NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft provided us with stunning views of Pluto and the internet was suddenly filled with Pluto images and memes. A few related items; On Wired, a roundup of the Pluto Science from New Horizons, from Space News special coverage of the Pluto Flyby. On the silly side of the coverage, xkcd had Pluto.
The MSK Library has subscriptions to thousands of titles in medical and scientific research. However, no library can have them all. For those patrons who need access to research outside the library’s subscriptions, we offer an Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery service. In this month’s Do You Know post, I thought I’d shed some light onto this helpful and convenient service.
The Interlibrary Loan team here at MSK processes around 38,000 requests annually; both finding articles and books for our researchers as well as providing materials to researchers at other institutions. Once a request is entered into our ILLiad Document Delivery System, it is given individual attention by one of our team members.
We confirm that the citation is correct, check for the item in our collection, and make sure appropriate attention is payed to copyright compliance. Once we determine that the article is not available in our own collection, nor online through a free legal source, it is sent off through various channels to our lenders. This is most often done through Docline, a system run by the National Library of Medicine for just this purpose. We also send some requests through OCLC; a large network connecting libraries worldwide. While there is sometimes a cost involved in these transactions, the library absorbs it as part of our service.
On the rare occasion that we are unable to track down an item, it is never because of lack of effort on our part. We love the challenge of locating obscure and outmoded materials to help the MSK community reach their research goals!
So when you find yourself hitting the inevitable paywall, direct your browser to the Document Delivery Service.