The Rensselaer Libraries recently signed a license agreement with Academic Press to participate in the International Digital Electronic Access Library (IDEAL). A three-year development project aimed at using the Internet to expand and improve access to research journals, IDEAL makes the full-text of all 180 Academic Press research journals available through RensSearch.
The IDEAL service was achieved through a special arrangement with the Northeast Research Libraries consortium (NERL). The Rensselaer Libraries currently subscribe to -- and will retain -- 49 Academic Press titles in print. The new arrangement with NERL provides for electronic access to all 180 titles published by Academic Press, and will give us an opportunity to assess electronic formats as print alternatives.
Using IDEAL, Rensselaer faculty, students, and employees can browse and search journal tables of contents and abstracts (in HTML), as well as view, search, print, or download complete articles (in PDF format) for scholastic, research, educational, and personal use. IDEAL also permits printing and downloading single copies of a reasonable number of individual items; users may find such copies included in coursepacks or in class reserves. IDEAL, however, does not not permit copying or downloading of entire issues, nor does it permit remote access by members of the general public.
To access the IDEAL journals, use the Electronic Journals hotlink on the Libraries' main RensSearch page (http://www.rpi.edu/dept/library/html /LibInfo.html). This link provides lists of all our licensed electronic journals alphabetically, by subject, and by publisher. To display full-text articles in PDF, use the Adobe Acrobat Reader software available on RCS workstations and the Libraries' RensSearch workstations. To obtain full-text on your own desktop, download the Acrobat Reader from http://www.adobe.com or http://www.rpi.edu/About/resources.html. (This same software accesses the electronic Class Reserves files.)
Full-text is available for issues published in January 1996 and thereafter; over 2,000 articles will be added every month.
We welcome your comments about IDEAL; please contact Loretta Ebert or John Dojka by directing e-mail to ebertl@rpi.edu and dojkaj@rpi.edu, respectively. You may also obtain additional information and help by sending mail to lib-support@rpi.edu.
Please note that, as with some of the Libraries' other licenses (such as Current Contents and FirstSearch) our agreement with Academic Press restricts access to authenticated users on the Troy campus. Users who obtain remote access through other Internet Service Providers cannot successfully access the IDEAL service without going through RCS.
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