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Introduction
The online version of the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (JAC) is now available to all subscribers and all members of the BSAC. Access to the electronic version of the Journal is free to existing and future subscribers. Not all subscribers may be aware of this fact or know how to gain access to the online Journal. Those who have not yet tried the online Journal may not be aware of the advantages for users who can now:
This Editorial has been written as a primer to introduce subscribers to the online JAC and whet your appetites with a taste of the extra services provided.
The Journal is hosted on the HighWire Press site of Stanford University Libraries. In addition to the full text of JAC and an archive of published issues, the site gives you the ability to link to other journals and enables you to do literature searches, including links to MEDLINE. Through the HighWire site you are able to search other HighWire journals (the print versions of which are published by a range of publishers) such as the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (AAC), Science, the Quarterly Journal of Medicine (QJM) which, paradoxically, is published monthly, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI) and many others.
Registration
To reach the site you need access to the internet and the world wide web (www) via a browser such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. Once you have reached this point enter http://jac.oupjournals.org and press return. Up will come the JAC title page which gives you a wide choice of things to visit, but before you see any of the delights in store I suggest that you save the above unique resource locator (URL) as a bookmark, because it saves you typing it out each time you wish to look at the online JAC. For BSAC members and personal subscribers the next step is for you to register your subscription number. This is an eight digit number listed on the address label of the envelope in which the journal arrives. If you have thrown the wrapper away or cannot remember the number, you can obtain it by clicking on jnl.info{at}oup.co.uk and requesting it by e-mail. Oxford University Press (OUP) will e-mail the number to you. Click on the link Print subscribersRegister for online access. Once you have entered your subscriber number you will be asked to complete the Personal Subscriber Information and enter your password. Once you have clicked on the Submit Details button your registration takes a few seconds and then you can access the site. If you have problems e-mail jnl.subscriptions{at}oup.co.uk
If it is an institutional subscription (i.e. belonging to your library, university, hospital or firm) that you use, you can still access the online version from your office or lab computer by asking your librarian to register the subscription for online access. When they do this they will need to input the IP addresses of all the computers on site that should have access to online subscriptions. Again, if they have any problems they should contact OUP (at jnl.subscriptions{at}oup.co.uk). Once the institutional subscription has been registered for online access, you will be able to access the complete JAC online site without leaving your desk or needing a password. Note for nerds: the URLs given above are HTML sensitive as are most of the words in the title page. Downloading to print uses PDF files via Adobe Acrobat.
Browsing
The online title page offers a choice of a dozen or so things to dofrom looking at the contents of the current issue of the JAC, to reading about the Aims and Scope of the JAC, Abstract and Indexing Services, Members of the Editorial Board, Instructions to Authors (useful if you are thinking of submitting an article to the Journal) and others. Most people will want to click on the JAC cover image to view the contents of the latest issue. If you do this, a Table of Contents is displayed with links to the abstracts and full text. If you wish to browse the archives you will see a list of all issues from March 1975 to the present. From March 1975 to July 1979 only the Tables of Contents are available. From September 1979 to December 1996 only abstracts of articles are available. From January 1997 to December 1998 both abstracts and downloadable PDF articles are available, and lastly, from January 1999 to the present, abstracts and downloadable full text articles are available. If you click any issue it will also indicate the title of any supplement associated with it. You can search these using keywords or by scanning down the contents list of each supplement in exactly the same way as any journal issue.
Searching
There are two ways of searching. You can either click on the grey Search for Articles bar on the title page, which takes you to the search screen, or you can click on View Current Issue to get the contents page. From this you can either select an article to read on screen by clicking on the [Full Text] sign, or enter keywords to obtain any article containing them. Search terms are easily used. For example, you can put in All articles on metronidazole resistance in Helicobacter. The search will ignore words like the, and, but, in, etc. Using these terms the search engine identified 19 issues from August 1997 onwards. As you open each issue you will see the list of articles containing your search terms. Each article is accompanied by a red icon which indicates the level of confidence in the search terms. If the level exceeds 70% you will get an article title and abstract; if below 70% you get the contents page only, which you have to scan.
Printing off an article
If you wish to read an article in the Journal, click on the [Full Text] sign. Up will come a Sign In' or Subscribers' page to complete. Once this has been done you can either read the full text on the screen, or print the PDF version, which looks like the article in the printed version of the Journal. To print the PDF version, go to the top right-hand corner of the full text pages and click on Reprint (PDF) Version of this Article. Then you can download the article (click download) and print it off. If you haven't a clue whether your computer or network has Adobe Acrobat (necessary to interpret the PDF file), don't panic. This is free software which you can download in a few secondsjust follow the very simple instructions. Downloading an article direct to your printer can take some time (34 min) but the process is faster if you download to your hard drive (C: drive) or floppy disc (in the A: drive) and print from there, or if you print the article from the OUP server page by page. It should be obvious that printing photographs, (for example of gels), will take more time than text. There is a useful Help menu for speeding up the printing process; I usually print off the relevant Help section to save time.
I viewed an article by Palucha et al. in JAC 44: 48999, from the October 1999 issue. On 495 there are photographs of two plasmid DNA digests. Both appeared with good clarity on the screen of my upgraded 486 computer and on the downloaded PDF printout when compared with the original in the print version of the Journal.
Searching references
One of the most useful features of the web site is that you can search for references in any article and then obtain the full article or MEDLINE entry. For example, if you read an article of interest that contained a reference you wish to read, then simply click on the reference. If it has an [Abstract/Full Text] sign this will link you to the abstract or full text and means that the article is also hosted by HighWire. If there is, in addition, a [Medline] sign this will link you to the relevant entry in the PubMed database. MEDLINE references can only be retrieved if they are listed in the PubMed database which includes MEDLINE and PREMEDLINE. MEDLINE is the US National Library of Medicine's premier database, which covers the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system and the preclinical sciences. It is based in Washington, DC, USA. If you are unfamiliar with searching MEDLINE I suggest you print off the Help instructions. They are extensive and comprehensive.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you intend using MEDLINE, and are using it online, be aware of the time zone effect on the usage of this system. MEDLINE can become slow during peak usage (USA daylight hours). If you can use the system at non-peak times (for example in the morning for those in Western Europe) it is sensible to do so.
Help
The Help button is most useful. You will find this on the left of the top bar, next to the extreme left Home button. The Help screen enables you to see problems with or details of your Subscription Information, or features of the online JAC. It has Tips for Better Web Browsing which are useful, and also a section on Frequently Asked Questions.
eTOCs and Cookies
I used the Help section to find out about Cookies. I will not tell you anything about this but let you have fun finding out what they are and the advantages they give you. I also registered for eTOCs. This is the e-mail version of the Table of Contents. eTOCs alerts you by e-mail when a new issue of JAC goes online. From eTOCs you can link directly to the full text of articles you are interested in (provided you have registered for online access).
Other features
As well as being notified each time a new issue is published you can also ask to be notified by e-mail when other articles hosted within the HighWire System cite the article in which you have an interest; useful if it's an article that you wish to use as a reference in your next paper. If it's one of yours you will be alerted every time it's citeda continuing source of narcissistic pleasure for some! You can also ask it to search MEDLINE for other articles by the same author as the paper you are interested inalways useful to see how the opposition is progressing. I understand that soon you will be able to click a button to have an article entered into your very own reference manager, so you will be able to write your paper even more quickly.
Other journals
It may be that although you subscribe to the Journal you really want to have free access to the host of other journals that are available on the Stanford Libraries' HighWire site, all of which are further searchable via MEDLINE.
There are lots of things to see and do on the site, so spend a little time getting familiar with it. It's worth it, particularly if you save the relevant bookmarks to sites of particular interest to you. Do let OUP know if you have any comments or suggestions that may improve the site further.
Notes
* Tel: +44-1708-744-278; E-mail: edwardsofgideapark{at}tinyworld.co.uk