GEORGE TOWN, Oct 16 — The move to unsubscribe to Science Direct website certainly did not go well with some of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) students.
A check on the USM’s postgraduates Facebook page revealed that the move received mostly negative feedback as the students were unhappy with the decision to cut the library’s budget in March earlier this year.
Some questioned the practicality of the move as it will be “time consuming” for the students to gain access to the intended reference materials.
“It is so time consuming compared to last time. Hopefully, something better can be done about this,” someone commented on the university’s postgraduate institute Facebook page.
Another user posted, “For my PhD thesis, I read around 400 papers and reviewed almost 200 of them. How could I do it with the current arrangement? Submit four to five requests every few days? Is it practical at all?”
Others also expressed their worry that the move may impact both the quality and quantity of research undertaken at the university.
“In my opinion, this is going to have adverse effects on both quantity and quality of the research in USM,” commented
the user.
There were also postgraduate students who questioned the budget cut despite the higher fees charged.
However, not all students are up in arms over the matter as one of them pointed out that the necessary readings and reviews could be done if a request is submitted daily.
“They will send you the paper the earliest after three days upon request. I got my paper mostly after one day.
It will not affect too much if you submit your request every day and your review and reading can still be on schedule,” said the student.
Incidentally, a poll on the library’s reference and research division shows Science Direct to be the favoured database among students with more than 30 per cent of the vote, edging out eight other databases.
A total of 750 students have voted with 226 of them choosing Science Direct as their favourite database.
