[HSF] Paper Journals in an Internet age.

Mon Jan 1 08:29:24 EST 2007

Ahhh, those where the days - I remember using some online reference  
systems and thinking wow, this is great.

Prasanna - what would it take to get some copies of some of those  
early papers?  (ie scanned PDFs?)

-michael

On Jan 1, 2007, at 12:00 AM, prasannasimha wrote:

> For me it is very plain and simple. If I were to subscribe to ATS,  
> JTCVS and EJTCVS, I would have to spend nearly Rs 10,000/= approx  
> per month and that is impossible for me. So I rely on the Hospital  
> Library which gets journals at its own time depending on  
> subscriptions and vagaries of airmail. We have a thing called  
> Helinet.This is a system where our hospital subscribes via our  
> Health university (we have a single university for all medical  
> colleges in Karnataka state) to an Internet based service called  
> HELINET through which we can access certain journals via things  
> like science direct , Ovid etc but unfortunately the only cardiac  
> surgery journal is ATS and that too its payment (and hence access)  
> is a bit erratic. I usually get articles of interest via many kind  
> souls who send them over to me when I ask via email and I  
> acknowledge their altruism in helping me out. There are many  
> journals that are free after varying amounts of time. I can get  
> access say after 6 months or a year and some are free access for  
> India (for Eg Lancet / NEJM etc). Unfortunately the free access  
> system (after a period of time) does not exist for cardiac surgical  
> journals except a couple.
> The whole process of journal writing etc are to allow dissemination  
> of Knowledge and I cannot see why it has to be locked down after  
> say 6 months or a year. I appreciate that journal publishing  
> companies have to make profits but they should allow free access at  
> least after some time. The contributors and editors have done it  
> for gratis and they should allow access after some time. This would  
> increase the journal's prestige and impact factor anyway.
> All I have is a few old dusty copies of some earth shaking articles  
> for eg Lillehei's original cross circulation paper and Hillel Laks  
> "Laks suture" (fenestrated ASD for Fontan's) etc. I hold on to these.
> Then there is a thing called Amedeo which sends interesting  
> articles (the titles and links to PUBMED) weekly which I find  
> useful and PUBMED is great for doing literature searches.
>
> I remember taking around 50 disks of Silver Platter and searching  
> Index Medicus or worse the huge bound Journals of Index Medicus  
> that I had to wade through when I did my MS(Gen surg) and MCh 
> (Thoracic) degrees. I had to wear a mask and cap while I rummaged  
> through all those books. My MS thesis was on gall stones and since  
> I read every reference that I quoted, I was searching in the really  
> old archived section of Grant Medical College (which is around 170  
> years old and so had most of the really old journals). Since  
> photocopying was not very prevalent and expensive , most of these  
> used to be read and the article summarized in a note book.I used to  
> have a carbon paper copy of each page while writing. Writing a  
> thesis was actually involving cut and paste (we used to write it in  
> sections and then actually cut out portions and paste them on  
> sheets) -I still remember Jimmy Carter getting one of the original  
> word processors (basically what we could call as an electronic  
> typewriter) and when I saw my first one. I said Wow it can justify  
> edges and we can correct the lines prior to typing using a preview  
> option. My first thesis was written when I was doing my MBBS  - (I  
> had got a research grant as a first year medical student - a rare  
> thing in India those days) and typing on a manual typewriter was  
> such a pain and getting some one to type who could understand  
> medical terminology was a bigger pain !! At that time photocopying  
> was such a laborious process (I am sure many would remember the old  
> manual photocopiers involving a frame with toner that used to be  
> shaked and the margins of the photocopier surface had to be wiped  
> etc) Writing it down was easier !!
> The final indexing was a tremendous pain invovling flash cards and  
> indexing cards !!
> Today we can do it all in a click of a button !!!
> Dr Frater could probably tell about his tribulations  in his time !!
> Prasanna
> Michael Firstenberg wrote:
>> I used to like the idea of entire bookselves filled with Journals  
>> - now they just take up tons of space.  Since, for the most part  
>> the internet and PDF access (at least to recent stuff) is easy -  
>> does anyone keep this stuff anymore?  if so why?
>>
>> Am I just being sentimental for the old days?
>>
>>
>> -michael
>>
>>
>> HAPPY NEW YEAR to all
>>
>>
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