Hi All,
One of my practices as a Serials Librarian is to verify that online access to already purchased and activated journals remains activated and accessible at the article level. I evaluate e-journal titles hosted on any given publisher site but do not check those links to aggregator databases like Academic Search Complete and such. I make sure that what the publisher has turned on is within our holdings statements and that I can get article level access. I do this title by title because I don�t know of a robot or link checker that actually verifies that I am getting into an article not a table of contents, offer to buy the article, or some other non-article page.

My practice is to generate a list of titles by publisher host site and then go through our OPAC clicking on links until I�ve viewed the oldest and newest article I believe I should have access to. My best estimate is that 10 to 25 percent of titles have some kind of difficulty that requires my intervention.

My questions are these: Is there a better way to make sure I have the access I am supposed to have? And if others do it the same way I do, is 10 to 25 percent your perception of the error rate? And finally, is it your opinion that this activity requires from non-librarian staff a higher skill level than troubleshooting print? Or, asked another way, is this something staff can do or should it be left to a librarian?

Your thought will be appricated.

Michael Lampley
Serials Librarian
Texas Christian University
TCU Box 2984000
2913 West Lowden St.
Fort Worth, TX 76129
817 257 6485

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