I’d like to chime in on the statement about SFX and WMS knowledge bases being identical. This is absolutely not the case. (I realize this was shared secondhand, and maybe that perception comes from your libraries particular portfolio of e-content; I’m not sure.) Anyone considering switching from SFX to OCLC WMS should realize the importance of this issue. My library maintains SFX and OCLC WMS but we preference SFX as our link resolver.

Both SFX and our instance of WorldCat Local were implemented some time before I started here. They were both implemented with the best available data at the time, but that data was quite faulty, and ever since I got here, I’ve had to spend time cleaning up both the SFX local KB and OCLC WMS KB. Recently I worked with a staff member to compare our active SFX targets to active OCLC WMS KB collections. Even at that basic level of comparison, they are very different. And even if you have an SFX target that looks like it is equal to an OCLC WMS KB collection, when you look at the title level, it is very common to find discrepancies.

There are some areas where OCLC KB data is ahead of SFX, and vice versa, for example with the timing of new targets/collections or when changes and updates are implemented. It is really not clear that one is categorically better in every aspect than the other, but I definitely prefer SFX for the level of customization, features, and functionality, and local control it offers that OCLC cannot match.

Steve

Assistant Professor of Library Science
Electronic Resources and Serials
Wheaton College (IL)
+1 (630) 752-5852

From: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum on behalf of Jason Skoog
Reply-To: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
Date: Wednesday, August 5, 2015 at 10:06 AM
To: "SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG"
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] OCLC's Link Resolver

Thank you for your thoughts (and sorry about the delay as I was out of the office).

I was speaking with a Librarian who planned to switch from SFX to OCLC's link resolver.  It was causing problems with WorldShare ILL, which relies on the WorldCat.org database (Illiad, which we use, uses OpenURL).  So if an article did not have a record in the WorldCat.org database, their ILL button wouldn’t appear.

Another college uses Illiad and OCLC's link resolver and did not have this problem.

He still plans to move to OCLC link resolver, but he doesn’t know when OCLC will fix the issue (Realistically they’ll probably do so next summer).  He said the SFX and WMS knowledgebases were identical so they didn’t have problems with clean up.  If we switched, he recommended testing a database first.  They planned to keep SFX around for several months as a failsafe and to catch any vendors that still have SFX info after they made the switch (which they’d see through SFX stats).

Next summer I plan to check in him for an update.  I can post here.

On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 1:40 PM, Tiffany LeMaistre <tiff.lemaistre@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,

At Nevada State College we are currently running OCLC's link resolver alongside Serials Solutions to assess the possibility of switching to OCLC to reduce costs.

The transition was essentially as difficult as I expected it to be. Most of the major databases ported over easily with a large holdings file upload. Individual journals subscriptions were sort of sporadic. I had to check most of them individually to make sure they matched correctly into the OCLC knowledgebase. 

If you profile e-books in Serials Solutions, I would recommend setting up holdings feeds from each e-book vendor directly into OCLC rather than loading a file of your e-book holdings from Serials Solutions into OCLC. The holdings feeds can be delayed (by as much as two weeks), but they are more accurate than what you will get by uploading a file to match into the OCLC knowledgebase.

I echo Barbara's concerns about interface customization with OCLC. The out of the box view is basically what you get. I will say that in terms of accuracy of actually linking from a citation to the full text, in my testing so far both products have come out about the same.

-Tiffany

-- 
Tiffany LeMaistre | tiffany.lemaistre@nsc.edu
Electronic Resources & Discovery Librarian
Nevada State College, Marydean Martin Library

On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 1:28 PM, Jason Skoog <jaskooglists@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,

Has anyone replaced serial solutions with OCLC's link resolver?  What kind of clean-up in WMS was involved?

We use serial solutions, but like that the cost of OCLC's link resolver is included with our OCLC package.

Thank you

--
Jason Skoog
Archivist and Systems Librarian
Viterbo University, La Crosse, WI
608-796-3262

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--
Jason Skoog
Archivist and Systems Librarian
Viterbo University, La Crosse, WI
608-796-3262

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