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CORRESPONDENCE: J.L. Arnold, Suite 2.4, Hutton's Building, 146 West Street, Sheffield, S1 4ES, UK. Fax: 44 1142780498. E-mail: Linda.Arnold@ersj.org.uk
Have you ever had a headache that lasted 3 yrs? If you have ever tried to log onto ERJ online and failed then you may be partway to understanding the cause of my chronic headache.
In January, 2004, Peter Sterk and Klaus Rabe, the Chief Editors of the ERJ, reported that many readers around the world had complained about the accessibility of the ERJ online 1; and, as the recipient of many of these complaints, I can confirm that this was the case. The reputation of the ERJ, and the impact it has upon the respiratory field, is directly affected by how efficient the dissemination of it is. It has,therefore, been imperative to resolve the problems experienced by our readers.
It is with relief that I report that my "ibuprofen equivalent" comes in the form of a company called HighWire. Whilst this company may be unknown to most of you, their system will be very familiar, as they are responsible for hosting the American Thoracic Society (ATS) journals and 70% of all the other journals cited in the ERJ.
What changes will we see?
As is the case for the ATS journals, the new site will be clearly branded and members will be able to go seamlessly from the main European Respiratory Society (ERS) site to the ERJ site, and back again, without re-entering passwords.
If you are a member of the ERS you will have a choice of ways to access the Journal: 1) directly from the members section of the ERS website (www.ersnet.org); 2) by logging onto the HighWire site (http://highwire.stanford.edu), where you can access all the HighWire-hosted journals that you subscribe to; 3) via any third-party link, e.g. PubMed, ISI Web of Science, Google etc.; or 4) by logging on at www.erj.ersjournals.com. Whichever way you access the journal, your user name and password will be the same and you will be able to link directly to the ERS site and be recognised as a member.
Obviously, a large proportion of our readers are not members but belong to libraries with subscriptions. Each library will have its preferred method of accessing the journal and your librarian will be able to advise you. For the benefit of libraries, the new system will run concurrently with the old system until the end of the year, to allow the librarians to switch to the new system at a convenient time. If you wish to make the most of the new features, ask your librarian about switching to the new system sooner rather than later; details of how to do this will have been sent to each library subscriber.
Other non-member readers have just as many ways to access the journal. They can access through the means described above for members, and will have direct access to abstracts and full text of older articles. New articles will be available on a pay-per-view basis and can be purchased on an article-by-article basis or as a day-pass to our site, depending upon the user's needs.
Beneficial features
Inter-journal linking
Our members, subscribers and authors will gain a substantial benefit from inter-journal linking. If an article cited in the ERJ is available on HighWire (as 70% of those cited are), then access to the full text is allowed free of charge. This obviously works both ways, and readers of journals citing an ERJ article can access it; therefore, our authors benefit by having their articles more widely accessible, increasing the likelihood of further citations.
Links to cited articles which are not available on HighWire will be created if they are available on ISI Web of Science, Medline or CrossRef and, depending upon the access control of each article, you will gain access to the abstract or full text.
Supplementary data
There will be a supplementary data deposit available, which allows authors to include additional data that ordinarily would be too extensive to be printed; for example large tables, microarray data or video clips. This supplemental data can be accessed from the original article.
Citation tracker
An additional feature the ERS has chosen to have is information relating to article citation from ISI Web of Science. The information will allow the readers to track citations of individual articles. This will be particularly useful for authors, enabling them to ascertain how many times their article has been cited; no doubt facilitating future grant applications.
Table of contents and personal home page
As a registered user you will be able to receive current content alerts in the form of electronic table of content (e-TOC) alerts, which will keep you informed of new articles published in the ERJ. You can choose to have these in an HTML format, which allows direct linking, or, if your hospital or university blocks such emails, in plain text.
You will be able to create a personal homepage on the site, which could feature: your search results, results from previous and current searches; my favourite journal, a list of journals you are subscribed to and can gain full access to; and cross-journal alerting, alerting you of particular e-TOCs or articles relating to a specific topic from other HighWire-hosted journals.
When and how?
If this is just what you have been waiting for then go and log on through the ERS website www.ersnet.org or the other methods described above and experience these new enhanced features for yourself.
I am sure you will find that the ERJ really is at your fingertips, and any headache I now have will be due to the Champagne!
References
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