Depending on how you search for Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties (CPS) in the UBC Library catalogue--either by selecting the radio button 'Title,' as if it were a book, or selecting the 'JOURNAL/Ejournal title' radio button--you can be led astray.
In my original search for this item, I chose the latter, clicked 'Go' and was taken to the 'Electronic Journals at UBC' page within two links. There, next to CPS, a link is provided to 'Title details for ulrichsweb.com.' However, clicking this link leads to an error message, no data found. I was a bit confused by this and contacted the UBC Library ehelp and asked whether UBC had access to the online version of CPS. It was determined UBC did not have access. The ulrichsweb link, that is not working with this particular ejournal, is to Ulrich's Periodical Directory. By randomly selecting other ejournals in which the urlichsweb link was provided, I found some did indeed link to that directory while others resulted in the same error message.
However (and this is a big however as it would have saved me a lot of time and frustration), if I had searched under 'Title' it would have resulted in two records, one for the print verson, one for the online version. So, in fact, UBC does have electronic access to CPS. I discovered this last night in class when I searched CPS again, choosing 'Title.' At that time there was message saying that access to E-CPS, as it is called, was temporarily unavailable; today that has been remedied.
My concern is for other people searching the catalogue, such as med or pharmaceutical students searching off-campus, considering the CPS a journal/serial (it has a ISSN number) and quickly giving up when encountering the broken link. Is it any wonder that some people find OPACs intimidating, without even mentioning the sometimes complex interfaces and required search strategies of databases?
Additionally, while the UBC Catalogue--as do the OPACs of McGill University Libraries and the Toronto Public Library--list the publisher as the Canadian Pharmaceutical Association (CPhA), the 2006 print version and the Association website have it as the Canadian Pharmacists Association. Perhaps there has been a name change that is not refected in the catalogue. Significant? Maybe not. Just one of those minute details that some librarians and budding librarians like to obsess over.
http://www.pharmacists.ca/content/about_cpha/
who_we_are/publications_products/inside_publications.cfm#cps
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4 comments:
Isn't it awkward to find the electronic versions of medical and pharmaceutical textbooks?
What would be a reasonable solution? I think linking software that can recognize our digital surrogates - we use SFX for our journals but it does not yet seem to apply to our monographs.
Dean
By the way, welcome back to the blogosphere.
Dean
D.,
Did you know that this post is 400 words in length? That's essentially the equivalent of five blog posts for LIBR534!
Dean
I've had a lot of complaints (mostly telephone) about the new layer they've added where no matter what you type into the journal/ejournal search box, even if it's misspelled, you get "results". Of course when you click on the link, it tells you there are 0 results.
Apparently this is temporary and will be removed eventually, but it's sure annoying.
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