ScienceDirect, in the past week, has tightened the limits on the number of items it allows to be simply viewed (not downloading metadata and certainly not capturing PDFs) in a given time span. I have encountered this (ScienceDirect warning and block) simply clicking on articles and reading the abstracts without clicking on the browser Zotero icon to capture metadata. In my case I was glancing at the abstracts of no more than 4 to 6 abstracts per minute over a 5 minute span when my computer was blocked. To be specific, I imported zero metadata for zero articles during this interval (although I had downloaded metadata to Zotero from selected individual articles about 15 minutes before).
This was mentioned in other forum threads here a few weeks ago but, for me, the problem is worsening. Last week I encountered this block. I clicked on the contact ScienceDirect support link and, as promised, received a reply within 24 hours. I've been corresponding with both ScienceDirect and Mendeley support (although I don't know how Mendeley support became involved).
In my case, this is particularly puzzling. I have an IP-address-based license from Elsevier to have access to their ScienceDirect metadata. Until earlier this year, I had regular quarterly contacts with staff in the Elsevier A&I department to provide them with quarterly, annual, and total indexing counts of articles from their journals. I've tried contacting the staff at A&I and haven't yet heard back.
In my emails with the two support sections I stressed that I have the license and that the metadata is being used to index journal contents. They replied that Elsevier journals are indexed cover-to-cover in Scopus and Compendex. I replied (but haven't had a reply) that my database is not the only free-to-use database that selectively indexes Elsevier journals (I mentioned ERIC, International Index Medicus, PubMed, and TRID). Elsevier now provides article metadata in bulk through an API to PubMed and maybe ERIC. This used to be done through an automated FTP push. However, I know that for the IIM and TRID databases, articles from journals are selected for indexing by volunteer librarians via the ScienceDirect web interface (as is the case with "my" SafetyLit database).
I'm saving all of the emails and can share later. If Elsevier is planning to restrict their metadata from unaffiliated indexes as well as to everyday web visitors, this is going to be very complicated, interesting, and troubling. It seems that it is in their interest to have individuals and databases have easy access to metadata so that their articles can be properly cited and found.
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ScienceDirect, in the past week, has tightened the limits on the number of items it allows to be simply viewed (not downloading metadata and certainly not capturing PDFs) in a given time span. I have encountered this (ScienceDirect warning and block) simply clicking on articles and reading the abstracts without clicking on the browser Zotero icon to capture metadata. In my case I was glancing at the abstracts of no more than 4 to 6 abstracts per minute over a 5 minute span when my computer was blocked. To be specific, I imported zero metadata for zero articles during this interval (although I had downloaded metadata to Zotero from selected individual articles about 15 minutes before).
This was mentioned in other forum threads here a few weeks ago but, for me, the problem is worsening. Last week I encountered this block. I clicked on the contact ScienceDirect support link and, as promised, received a reply within 24 hours. I've been corresponding with both ScienceDirect and Mendeley support (although I don't know how Mendeley support became involved).
In my case, this is particularly puzzling. I have an IP-address-based license from Elsevier to have access to their ScienceDirect metadata. Until earlier this year, I had regular quarterly contacts with staff in the Elsevier A&I department to provide them with quarterly, annual, and total indexing counts of articles from their journals. I've tried contacting the staff at A&I and haven't yet heard back.
In my emails with the two support sections I stressed that I have the license and that the metadata is being used to index journal contents. They replied that Elsevier journals are indexed cover-to-cover in Scopus and Compendex. I replied (but haven't had a reply) that my database is not the only free-to-use database that selectively indexes Elsevier journals (I mentioned ERIC, International Index Medicus, PubMed, and TRID). Elsevier now provides article metadata in bulk through an API to PubMed and maybe ERIC. This used to be done through an automated FTP push. However, I know that for the IIM and TRID databases, articles from journals are selected for indexing by volunteer librarians via the ScienceDirect web interface (as is the case with "my" SafetyLit database).
I'm saving all of the emails and can share later. If Elsevier is planning to restrict their metadata from unaffiliated indexes as well as to everyday web visitors, this is going to be very complicated, interesting, and troubling. It seems that it is in their interest to have individuals and databases have easy access to metadata so that their articles can be properly cited and found.