For Michael Lampley and Steve Oberg, and perhaps other interested individuals ‘out there’, some observations about Sharp Moon, Inc.’s Callisto service based on our library being a subscriber for almost four years now:
Univ of KS Libraries has had a subscription to Callisto for several years and do get value from the services provided by their knowledgeable, attentive, and resourceful staff. We were one of Sharp Moon’s core initial adopters of Callisto. Before we committed to a subscription, we had what at that time was called a Free Trial, which we had from 12/05/11 to 01/31/12 – and we could have extended it. However, we were ready to roll and wanted whatever enhancements / additional services a subscription provided at that time plus any / all future new features / services that would be automatically available to us as a subscriber. For the price, we receive valuable services from our Callisto subscription.
Prior to using Callisto, we were either reacting to patron complaints of non-access (neither systematic nor proactive) or checking for access using renewal invoices and other title lists (very labor-intensive). Callisto quickly identifies and then alerts us to problems in real time, such as:
1. Database and platform errors that may prevent users access
2. Unexpected access lost or gained
3. When titles in a database change (i.e., new titles are added or titles are removed) à The only limitation is that this feature is dependent upon how each provider displays title-level content/access, and that varies significantly. Callisto would love to have this feature for all providers, but until providers themselves get and use a more standardized content display format/method, Callisto cannot do so.
4. Concurrent user limits are reached / exceeded
We especially appreciate the alerts in real time. Also, Callisto can identify access issues that are caused by technical reasons which often are invisible to libraries and even to providers themselves.
We set it up with Callisto so that the Callisto alerts are sent directly into a shared email account (EAID) which encompasses all types of e-resource-related inquiries and problems, including access problems. This is a pre-existing email account monitored by several departmental staff in assigned shifts throughout the day. Approximately 3-5 of those trouble-shooting team members manage the Callisto alerts within their already-assigned shifts (i.e., these are NOT additional staff pulled in to deal only with the Callisto alerts).
Callisto’s system is used to review / assess data overall at the end of the year, for example: outage timeframes; what providers had the most or longest outages; which products had what number of turnaways / repeatedly exceeded their user limits, for which we may need to consider purchasing additional concurrent users.
There are some Callisto features we are unable to use due to security concerns on our campus, such as ways to test if EZ Proxy is working – I think this would have required Callisto to have a username/password, and our Central IT simply cannot create a “dummy” username/password for that purpose, so we do not have this Callisto feature.
There were two things we had to get clarified before we committed to Callisto: Our concern about risk in violating any license terms relating to spiders, crawlers, and bots; and risk regarding providing an IP access to someone other than an authorized user. Callisto never opens PDF or full text and its search/scrape activity never comes anywhere close to burdening library or provider systems, so we thought the risk in these areas of concern was minimal.
Overall, Callisto is less of the “extra system” that it initially appeared to be on the surface -- or that we initially were concerned it might be. If we didn’t have Callisto, we would lose the ability to be efficiently proactive to identify and deal with all manner of access-related issues in real time, because we would revert to relying on users who actually report problems (not always promptly) and to using those myriad title lists to laboriously check on access.
-- Gaele (with thanks to Angie Rathmel [aroads@ku.edu ], our former E-Resources Librarian and now our Department Head, for providing additional facts)
-------------
E. Gaele Gillespie
Serials Librarian
Acquisitions / Resource Sharing Dept.
University of Kansas Libraries
Watson Library
1425 Jayhawk Blvd Rm 210 S
Lawrence, KS 66045-7544
Ph: 785-864-3051
Fax: 785-864-3855 (to my attention)
Email: ggillespie@ku.edu
From: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG] On Behalf Of Steve Oberg
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2015 4:14 PM
To: SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Electronic resources claiming (dates of actual access) best practices.
A word about Callisto that is worth mentioning: They offer a free service for qualifying institutions (I think basically they determine “Free” is for academic libraries, but see their website for more detail or ask them) that you can set up and try out to see how their service works. It’s what I did. I haven’t made up my mind yet about it but I have found the free version interesting and useful.
Steve
Assistant Professor of Library Science
Electronic Resources and Serials
Wheaton College (IL)
From: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum on behalf of "Lampley, Michael"
Reply-To: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
Date: Thursday, July 30, 2015 at 2:32 PM
To: "SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG"
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Electronic resources claiming (dates of actual access) best practices.
First a big thank you for everyone who responded to my questions. Basically I think the conclusion is that yes we want to continue e-resources claiming. But at the same time, there isn’t really a good way to do it other than the manual way most of us have been doing it. There were some mentions of Callisto so I call the sales department. While I can see some maintenance value in the product as the guy described it, it doesn’t address this concern and I didn’t see enough value for me to go forward based on our discussion. After I attend their webinar there might be something but I’m not holding my breath.
Thanks
Michael Lampley
Electronic Serials Librarian
Texas Christian University
TCU Box 298400
2913 West Lowden St.
Fort Worth, TX 76129
817 257 6485 TEL
From: Lampley, Michael
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2015 2:03 PM
To: 'SERIALST@listserv.nasig.org'
Subject: Electronic resources claiming (dates of actual access) best practices.
In searching the NASIG archive it looks like the last time we had this discussion was about 5 years ago. I am hoping something might have changed for the positive as I revisit it. I know this topic is like discussing the finer points of cat herding – while bareback riding a squirrel - but I still need to go there.
I’ve not had much luck in searching the available literature on the topic of electronic claiming and would like the community’s input. I want to be clear that when I say “claiming” I mean finding a way to make the holding statements for my e-resources in my catalog match up with what the vendors say I have along with the actual range of electronic access that I am actually getting. I’m assuming more or less a one to one relationship between any given title and the payment meaning we don’t check holdings for individual titles in databases.
When we last discussed this the state of affairs boiled down to these elements. We run a list of e-journals. We get someone to click on the link and see if we have access. We check the oldest and newest issue for article level access. We move on to the next title. Is that pretty much where we still are or is there some app that can help us out all the way down to the article level?
I am interested in how you identify items for claiming but I am at least, if not more, interested in whether or not you actually claim at all. Is it worth the effort?
Many thanks for your consideration.
Thanks
Michael Lampley
Electronic Serials Librarian
Texas Christian University
TCU Box 298400
2913 West Lowden St.
Fort Worth, TX 76129
817 257 6485 TEL
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