Hello all,

On March 28 I posted a question to the SFX Support list to MARCit!
customers re: setting holdings on OCLC for records received through the
MARCit! service. Later, on April 4, I posed the same question to ERIL-L
and SERIALST, broadening my question to include other services that
provide MARC records for e-journals held in aggregator databases,
publisher sites, and the like.  I received many requests to post a
summary to these lists. My apologies if you subscribe to more than one
of the lists names.

Following is a brief summary of the response I received.

And, many thanks to all who responded. You were incredibly helpful in
informing our discussion at CSU.

No. of responses:
7 libraries (all academic libraries)

MARC record service providers:
3 MARCit!
3 SerialsSolutions
1 No service (explained below)

No. who set holdings for the purchased records: 0

1 library responded that they use the A-Z list provided by SS, but do
not get the full set of records from SS. They only catalog those titles
they 'own' such as JSTOR, Project Muse, etc. and set holdings at the
time of cataloging. They do not attempt to catalog aggregator (such as
Lexis/Nexis Academic Universe) titles. [This is the current practice
here at Colorado State University, as well, although the MARCit! service
would change that).

Issuse/reasons for not setting holdings:

1) The records from MARCit! are typically for the print version and so
will not match correctly [i.e., will not match to the e-only record].
Because the library who responded owns many of these titles in print,
when the title drops from an aggregator database, holdings on OCLC [set
when the print was cataloged] would be removed from the print title they
continue to own. Also, it would be misleading to attach the library's
holdings symbol on these records when only electronic is owned. (MARCit!)

2) The process of managing the large quantity of dropped and added
records would be time consuming and not cost effective. (SS & MARCit!)

3) SS does not include the OCLC no. in the records they deliver, so
identifying the appropriate record in OCLC would very time consuming. (SS)

Bottom line, libraries purchasing such record sets do not set holdings
on OCLC when the records are loaded into their ILS.

Nancy
--
Nancy J. Chaffin
Metadata Librarian
Colorado State University Libraries
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1019

voice:  970.491.1847
fax:    970.491.4661
e-mail: Nancy.Chaffin@colostate.edu