New England Journal of Medicine....

Ever wished you'd let sleeping dogs lie...

After a direct email to their institutional subscription site and a conversation with Mark Danderson, there is some dialogue now beginning to take shape. There are some technical problems with accessing their High wire version with Athens and Mark is thinking about that. However the pricing they are thinking of charging for what is effectively the most recent 3 months worth of NEJM is so out of the ball park it's probably not worth the hassle negotiating. We shall see...

I did say to Mark that their ears must be burning over the pond, considering the heat generated on LIS Medical...

The proper conversation is started methinks!

More on BMJ

Well, things are looking up a bit. BMJ have now contacted me and will be coming back with a price for the three month period to the end of this financial year and for London access from April 2005. The price should be with me by the end of this week. Which gives me precisely three weeks to sort something out for continuation of service in January - my last working day is Friday 17th December. Needless to say I made BMJ know that their lack of contact and response to my increasingly vocal emails over the past months was pretty poor.

BMJ - what is going on??

As most of you know, electronic BMJ is effectively free. We've had it included in our general subscription of BMJ journals (a collection of around 25+ journals published by BMJ) although we don't actually "pay" for it. From January 1st, the electronic BMJ will be charged for. At present, we are not precisely sure how much it will cost to provide across London and I'm not getting any response back from BMJ- which is a little frustrating....

We were hoping that a joint deal with Higher Education and the National Core Content would happen to enable continued access to BMJ - and at no extra cost to London - but that seems to have been disbanded due to cost.

As far as I know - from 1st January until 31st March we still should have access to BMJ through our present BMJ Journals subscription - although we may well have to pay something for this access come the new financial year. We have pricing for the BMJ collection but that doesn't include BMJ itself and I have been trying to get someone to commit to a price but am not having much success at present.

We are getting several enquiries into eKAT on what is going on with BMJ, so I thought I would let you know of the current state of play.

Friday afternoon

Apologies for any curt replies to emails or telephone calls this afternoon as I will be sorting out the non-nhsnet / don't know where I work people to send to lucky Athens administrators. If I were still sharing an office with Barbara, I would be contributing heavily to the swear box. No wonder Mel looks drained after sorting this lot out! Ho hum! Will compensate by putting the headphones on and listening to Uriah Heep. Found it cheap - honest.

Second non-work related blog...

Went to see Bill Bailey at the Apollo in Shaftesbury Avenue with my daughter last night. We were waiting for a 14 bus right opposite. The non appearance of said bus, the biting cold forced us across the road to purchase tickets for the gig. Em, my daughter, has been down from St Andrews Uni this week (reading week... are these students ever working???) and had already been to see him on Monday night but she was up for a second showing.

Was excellent. Very quick on the improvisation and an accomplished musician. If he releases the Hokey Cokey in the style of Kraftwerk before Christmas, it will Christmas No.1.....
Think he finishes on 4th December so get in quick for a good laugh

Blogging Block

Had a conversation with Jane Williamson (NCL) yesterday who has taken the plunge with organizing a blog for LKDN (she is present chair).

After spending time last Friday setting the blog up and emailing all those who can access it - the Trust IT department came up with a policy that was instigated first thing Monday morning - not allowing access to blogs!!!

Well, at least she can read it anywhere else - other than work of course..

123doc

email from Stefan Darke for those still having trouble getting in...


To log in correctly please follow the below steps.
1. Log in to your Athens account.
2. Click on to the 123Doc resource.
3. Click on to login on the left side menu on 123Doc's webpage.
4. Click on Athens login.
5. Please fill in the box with your email and address. If you already have
a 123Doc account it will ask you for your username and password, which you
will enter (123Doc username & password not Athens). The majority of users
will not have had a previous account so will have to supply your email and
address. Once this is done you will only have to do this once.
6. Click on Go Study then Online E-courses to gain access to our material.