This column addresses questions that clinicians commonly ask medical librarians, with the goals of providing information about the various resources offered by medical libraries and of promoting collaboration between PAs and medical librarians. Do you have a question for a medical librarian? Send your question to ask.a.librarian.jaapa@gmail.com.

We're most enthused to hear from readers with questions and comments, and we may even try to rope you in to doing a guest column as well should you contact us! Please let us know what you think of our monthly offerings, and thank you for reading. 

Our first guest columnist weighs in about the "Open Access" movement. She is Alison Aldrich, Technology Outreach Coordinator, National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Pacific Northwest Region, Seattle, Washington

Question: PubMed is so frustrating. Every time I find what looks like a good research article, I click to find that the full text is not available unless I pay a fee. What gives?

Answer: The PubMed database includes complete article citation information and abstracts when they are available. PubMed shows links with options for getting to the full text, but not the full text itself. These options are sometimes free but often require a fee to be paid to the publisher.

Anyone in the world may access PubMed at http://pubmed.gov/. However, if you have remote access to a health sciences library through your university or hospital, you should start from that library's Web site and look for a special link to PubMed. When you start from your library's Web site, you will see extra links to show you which articles are part of your library's paid subscription set.

That's a partial answer, but not a complete one. PubMed indexes thousands of subscription journals, many more than any one library can afford. In the current economic climate, many libraries have had to make tough decisions about which subscriptions to maintain and which to let expire. The good news is that medical libraries have a strong network. If your library cannot provide you with access to an article, chances are good that the librarian will be able to obtain a copy from another library and have it to you within a few days.

Journal price increases are a real concern for libraries and for anyone who counts on access to the research literature. Proponents of the Open Access movement and similar initatives propose changes to traditional publishing models that would result in more peer-reviewed articles being made freely available on the Web without subscription fees for the readers. BioMed Central and Public Library of Science (PLoS) are two open access publishers who are already having success in managing new business models, maintaining peer-review standards and building positive reputations for their journals. 

In addition, new federal legislation seeks to extend taxpayer access to taxpayer-funded research articles. The NIH Public Access Policy, which became law in 2008, mandates that published articles resulting from NIH grant-funded projects be made freely available online within 12 months of their original publication. PubMed Central is the archive for these articles and for other free biomedical journal literature. 

As you seek publication for the articles you write, consider how publishing in a journal that supports open access could extend the impact of your work. The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) provides useful information about what to consider as you negotiate copyright agreements with publishers.

For more information about public access to electronic journals, see http://nnlm.gov/rsdd/ejournals/.

Jim Anderson is the PA-NP Supervisor, Department of Orthopedics, Seattle Children's Hospital, Seattle, Washington, and a member of the JAAPA editorial board. Susan Klawansky is a medical librarian at Seattle Children's Hospital.