My fellow nerds:

    There is actually a question in here, I promise. Treat it like a treasure hunt or quest.


    Anyone that knows me knows how much I despise low level maths. As such, this is largely anecdotal as usual.
 
    I've been test driving a paid subscription recently. Let's say for the sake of argument it's 5 letters long and rhymes with "go". I seemed to only get access to full text articles that lived behind a paywall about 1 in 20 times. 


    I chalked this up to the weird nature of both my searching style and the subject niche I find meself in. I mean NLM is really, really cool, right? So it's not necessarily fair to stack some aggregator up against them, or is it?  


    So I said to myself "Right, self. Need more data. Join another smarty listserv."

    So I did, and literally not 5 minutes go by when a message comes across about a lack of access to paid content from the same Massachusetts based lipstick on the pig provider. (Sorry, content providers provide content, amirite?) Granted, we *do* know what we're paying for since we get a really long list of what our subscriptions do and do not include. But how do we know which kids are playing the content and subscription shell game more often than others?


    I find this curiouser and curiouser. I'm well aware of the commodification of information. I know that stuff is often there on Sunday and not on Monday. (Thanks WIPO and greedy people.) 


    Can anyone please point my groggy butt to a good data visualisation or nerdy work on how often this game is played? Or perhaps a paper that compares full text content available in PubMed with the stuff some no good Yankees are reselling as if it were not just PubMed in a feathered cap a fur coat and a diamond tipped cane? 


    Next year's budget will appreciate your input, and if you're ever in the DC area, a craft beer or other drink of your choice is definitely on me.

Yours,
Brooke