We’ve written previously about DeepDyve, the search engine that searches the deep web, i.e. content that is out of reach of various search engines and other searching algorithms — PDFs, subscription-only archives, databases or other unstructured information located on the “dark web”.

Last week, DeepDyve announced that they are now offering consumers and professionals rental access to more than 30 million articles in their research database. Their new slogan is “Research. Rent. Read.”

Following the same model that companies such as Netflix have developed, DeepDyve will offer three plans:

• Basic rental plan: the pay-as-you-go plan, you can access a single article for just $0.99 – articles may be read multiple times for up to 24 hours.
• Silver monthly plan: $9.99 per month, users can rent and read up to 20 articles per month for up to seven days.
• Gold monthly plan: $19.99 per month, users can rent and read an unlimited number of articles for an unlimited amount of time.

Each plan offers a free, 14-day trial that allows unlimited access to thousands of journals. Additional features and benefits include:

• Free search and preview
• Bookmarks
• Email and RSS alerts
• Personalized suggestions and related content

How many articles and which journals?

DeepDyve’s website claims they have a collection of 30 million articles. The list of publishers indexed and available from DeepDyve is impressive and includes The FASEB Journal, Oxford University Press and Wiley/Blackwell. However, as noted by The Scholarly Kitchen, conspicuously absent are Elsevier and Springer.

But can’t I simply print out the article?

Actually, no. According to DeepDyve:

“Rented” articles can only be viewed at DeepDyve and cannot be downloaded, printed or shared. To download or print an article, DeepDyve conveniently includes a link alongside the “rental” button so that you can go directly to the publisher site to purchase or download the the article.

Articles are viewed in Adobe Flash player. Traditional article purchases, which allow for PDF download and printing, can be made on the individual publisher’s website.

I think it will be interesting to see user response to such a program. One advantage with DeepDyve is that it is first and foremost a search engine; although it has many features, including subject area refinement and advanced filters, better navigation (I’m thinking specifically of something like novo|seek or GoPubMed) would increase the overall value of the service: a more powerful search engine than PubMed AND you don’t need institutional access for many articles.

While I can perceive some value for the research professional who doesn’t have institutional journal access, I don’t see the public, particularly e-patients, using the service given that article copies cannot be saved. A DeepDyve blog post earlier this week said that their target audience is non-institutional “knowledge workers” and calculated a market size of approximately $2 – 4 billion dollars.

References

1. DeepDyve Unveils Online Rental Service for Research. Press Release. 2009 Oct 27.