“To the dismay of scholars, the publishing giant quietly purges articles from its database.” – Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan. 10.
The TeleRead take: So what else is now? Public and academic librarians should set the tone for the preservation of knowledge. That would happen under TeleRead.
Our favorite two paragraphs in the Chronicle article–or actually the most alarming–follow:
“Some say there are dangers associated with expunging material that goes beyond stymied scholarship or the cloaking of plagiarists.
“Drummond Rennie, a deputy editor at The Journal of the American Medical Association who is a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, says pulling a fraudulent article from a database could lead to poor treatment for patients. Physicians, unaware that the article was yanked, might remember reading it and act upon it. For example, he says, a physician might prescribe medication based on an article that incorrectly states the drug’s effects.”
While just a tiny fraction of the articles in the database have been pulled, people could die because of Elsevier’s deletions. Something to think about if you’re using a PocketPC, Palm or another hand-held for medical purposes?
