The Public-Access Computer Systems Review

Serving the Internet Community Since 1990. ISSN 1048-6542.

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A Brief History of the Journal
Annual Gopher and Web
Use Statistics
Articles and Web Pages Relevant
to the Journal

A Brief History of the Journal

The Public-Access Computer Systems Review (PACS Review) was an electronic journal about end-user computer systems in libraries. It was established in 1989 by Charles W. Bailey, Jr., who served as Editor-in-Chief for volumes one (1990) to seven (1996). It was published by the University of Houston Libraries.

The establishment of the journal was announced on the PACS-L list on August 16, 1989. A call for papers was issued on October 16, 1989. The publication of the first issue was announced on January 3, 1990. The journal was cataloged on OCLC on February 1, 1990 (record number 20987125) by the Library of Congress National Serials Data Program (it was assigned an ISSN number at the same time).

Initially, the journal published scholarly papers (Communications section), columns, and reviews. Papers in the Communications section were selected by the Editor-in-Chief and the Associate Editor, Communications. A private mailing list was utilized for communication with editorial staff and Editorial Board members. Most communication with authors was done via e-mail, including paper submission.

The PACS Review was published three times a year. New issue announcements were distributed as e-mail messages on the PACS-L list, and users retrieved the ASCII article files from the University of Houston's LISTSERV via e-mail. (LISTSERV distribution was suspended in 1999.)

Authors retained the copyright to PACS Review articles, and they gave the University of Houston the nonexclusive right to publish the articles in the journal and in future publications. Authors could republish their articles elsewhere, but they agreed to mention prior publication of the articles in the PACS Review within these works. Copying of PACS Review articles was permitted for educational, noncommercial use by academic computer centers, individual scholars, and libraries.

On October 29, 1991, the journal adopted a more flexible publication schedule that reduced article publication time.

A Refereed Articles section of the journal was announced on November 11, 1991, and a call for papers was issued on February 6, 1992. The Refereed Articles section included papers that were peer reviewed by Editorial Board members using a double-blind review procedure, which was usually conducted via e-mail. The publication of the first refereed paper was announced on April 6, 1992.

Between 1992 and 1996, the first five volumes of The Public-Access Computer Systems Review were also published in book form by the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA). Walt Crawford prepared the camera-ready copy for these volumes and Charles W. Bailey, Jr. provided editorial support.

Starting on April 6, 1992, PACS Review issue publication announcements were also distributed on the PACS-P list.

On January 29, 1994, the distribution of the journal via University of Houston Libraries' Gopher server was announced. (Gopher distribution was suspended in 1998.) The journal ceased publishing reviews in 1994.

On March 9, 1995, the distribution of the journal via University of Houston Libraries' Web server was announced.

Starting with the first issue of volume six (March 21, 1995), the PACS Review: (1) published articles in both ASCII and HTML formats, (2) offered HTML articles with both internal and external links, and (3) gave authors the option of updating the HTML version of their articles. The first updated article was "Network-Based Electronic Publishing of Scholarly Works: A Selective Bibliography" by Charles W. Bailey, Jr. An archive of the 26 versions of this article is available.

At the end of 1996, Mr. Bailey stepped down as Editor-in-Chief.

Pat Ensor and Thomas C. Wilson became Editors-in-Chief in January 1997. They edited volumes eight (1997) and nine (1998). Publication of the last issue was announced on June 18, 1998. Papers were under consideration for publication until August 2000, when the journal ceased operation.

During its nine years of publication, the PACS Review published 42 issues that included 112 articles, columns, reviews, and editorials (see the publication statistics for more detail).

The PACS Review was indexed in Current Index to Journals in Education, Information Science Abstracts, and Library Literature.

Editorial Staff

The individuals who served as Editor-in-Chief of the PACS Review were noted in the prior section.

The following individuals served as PACS Review editors:

The following individuals served on the PACS Review Editorial Board:

Columnists

The following individuals wrote columns for the PACS Review:

Annual Gopher and Web Use Statistics

Gopher and Web use statistics do not fully represent utilization of the journal. They do not include LISTSERV use or, until late March 2002, articles retrieved via the Web using the journal's search engine. The first five volumes of the journal were also published in book form (ISBN numbers: 0-8389-7593-0, 0-8389-7600-0, 0-8389-7700-6, 0-8389-7766-9, and 0-8389-7824-X). (The accession number of the primary OCLC record for the print version is 25907292.) Due to technical problems in 2003, there is no Web log data for January and February of that year and only partial data for August, September, and October.

Web use statistics include all files at the journal's Web site, except for files used for testing purposes.

Gopher Use Statistics (January 1994-December 1996)

Year Number of Successful Requests
(Rounded to the Nearest Thousand)
1994 17,000
1995 37,000
1996 27,000
Total 81,000

Web Use Statistics (March 1995-December 2004)

Year Number of Successful Requests
(Rounded to the Nearest Thousand)
1995
(March-December)		 70,000
1996 145,000
1997 195,000
1998 247,000
1999 232,000
2000 246,000
2001 251,000
2002 269,000
2003
(Partial Data)		 231,000
2004 716,000
2005 898,000
Total 3,500,000

Articles and Web Pages Relevant to the Journal

Articles That Discuss the PACS Review

The following articles discuss the PACS Review:
Bailey, Charles W., Jr. "Electronic (Online) Publishing in Action . . . The Public-Access Computer Systems Review and Other Electronic Serials." ONLINE 15 (January 1991): 28-35.

Ensor, Pat, and Thomas Wilson. "Public-Access Computer Systems Review: Testing the Promise." The Journal of Electronic Publishing 3, no. 1 (1997). http://www.press.umich.edu:80/jep/03-01/pacs.html

Moothart, Tom. "Charles W. Bailey, Jr.: Editor, Publisher, Innovator." Serials Review 23, no. 1 (1997): 59-62.

Research Studies That Include the PACS Review

The following research studies included the PACS Review as part of their e-journal sample:
Butler, H. Julene. "Research into the Reward System of Scholarship; Where Does Scholarly Electronic Publishing Get You?" In Filling the Pipeline and Paying the Piper: Proceedings of the Fourth Symposium, ed. Ann Okerson, 167-177. Washington, DC: Office of Scientific and Academic Publishing, Association of Research Libraries, 1995.

________. "Where Does Scholarly Electronic Publishing Get You?" Journal of Scholarly Publishing 26 (July 1995): 174-186.

Crawford, Walt. "Free Electronic Refereed Journals: Getting Past the Arc of Enthusiasm." Learned Publishing 15 (April 2002): 117-123. http://lysander.ingentaconnect.com/vl=2123717/cl=19/nw=1/rpsv/cgi-bin/linker?ini=alpsp&reqidx=/cw/alpsp/09531513/v15n2/s7/p117

Harter, Stephen P. "The Impact of Electronic Journals on Scholarly Communication: A Citation Analysis." The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 7, no. 5 (1996): 5-34. http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v7/n5/hart7n5.html

________. "Scholarly Communication and Electronic Journals: An Impact Study." Journal of the American Society for Information Science 49, no. 6 (1998): 507-516.

Harter, Stephen P., and Charlotte E. Ford. "Web-Based Analyses of E-Journal Impact: Approaches, Problems, and Issues." Journal of the American Society for Information Science 51 (November 2000): 1159-1176.

Harter, Stephen P., and Hak Joon Kim, "Electronic Journals and Scholarly Communication: A Citation and Reference Study," in Proceedings of the ASIS Midyear Meeting (San Diego: American Society for Information Science, 1996), 299-315. http://ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu/~harter/harter-asis96midyear.html

Hawkins, Donald T. "Bibliometrics of Electronic Journals in Information Science." Information Research 7, no 1 (2001). http://informationr.net/ir/7-1/paper120.html

Jacso, Peter. "Electronic Shoes for the Cobbler's Children: Treatment of Digital Journals in Library and Information Science Databases." Online 25 (July/August 2001): 46-52.

Joglekar, Neelambari, and Bharati Sen. "Evaluation of Electronic Journals in Library and Information Science." Information Studies 6 (July 2000): 189-200.

Tonta, Yasar. "Scholarly Communication and the Use of Networked Information Sources." IFLA Journal 22, no. 3 (1996): 240-245.

Woodward, Hazel, Fytton Rowland, Cliff McKnight, Carolyn Pritchett, and Jack Meadows. "Café Jus: An Electronic Journals User Survey." Journal of Digital information 1, no. 3 (1998). http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v01/i03/Woodward/

Zhang, Yin. "The Impact of Internet-based Electronic Resources on Formal Scholarly Communication in the Area of Library and Information Science: A Citation Analysis." Journal of Information Science 24, no. 4 (1998): 241-254.

________. "Scholarly Use of Internet-Based Electronic Resources." Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 52 (June 2001): 628-654.

Reviews of the Journal

The following reviews were published about the PACS Review:
Altman, Ellen, and Allan Pratt. Review of The Public-Access Computer Systems Review, Volume 3, 1992, ed. Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Leslie B. Pearse, Dana Rooks, and Roy Tennant. The Journal of Academic Librarianship 20 (July 1994): 180-181.

Cisler, Steve. Review of The Public-Access Computer Systems Review. ONLINE 15 (January 1991): 71-72.

Gillespie, Thom. Review of The Public-Access Computer Systems Review. The Library Quarterly 64 (January 1994): 100-102.

Henner, Terry. Review of The Public-Access Computer Systems Review, Volume 4, 1993, ed. Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Leslie B. Pearse, Dana Rooks, and Roy Tennant. Research Strategies 13 (Summer 1995): 188-189.

Piper, Alison I. Review of LIBRES: Library and Information Science Electronic Journal and Public-Access Computer Systems Review (PACS-R). Library and Information Science Research 20, no. 1 (1998): 108-110.

Web Pages That Mention the PACS Review

Use the links below to find Web pages that mention the journal.
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