Hi Michael, Yes, there are other ways to do this work, and staff other than librarians can do it. I struggled with this same problem while I was at the University of Oklahoma, and struggle with it now at the University of Maryland. The challenge is to find some consistent and controlled mechanism to track those subscription titles that include access, and past that, to incorporate the verification of access into the normal workflow of staff. While at OU, the serials staff and I were able to capitalize on the Sirsi system functionality to set up serial controls for each of the online access title subscriptions we should be receiving. We let the system randomly select expected dates on a twice yearly issue pattern. A claim report for online location titles could be generated on a weekly basis to capture any issues that the system identified as "late." With this report, the serials staff who traditionally worked with print resources could track each title and test the access for our coverage dates through the public access points. If they found a problem with one title, they then would check other titles from that publisher to determine if the problem was widespread. If problems were found that they could not easily address, they would then forward them to their supervisor, and/or on to me depending on the severity of the problem. >From the basis of the statistics we had started and before I left OU, I calculated that we were encountering problems with about 25% of the titles we checked, so your estimates are exactly what I have experienced. These grouped into four primary categories: * content not accessible due to hosting site changes or titles moving between publishers * coverage expanded or limited due to changes in subscription order access or licensed archival access to which we were entitled * new titles needing registration or follow up on licensing * IP ranges that needed correction with the publisher. As you corresponded with me briefly some months ago and more recently corresponded with Mark Hemhauser who works with me at the University of Maryland, you know that we are using Aleph as you are. And that we have struggled with the limitations of the serial control functionality with that system. I would be very interested to know if you are able to implement use of serial controls in Aleph to support this kind of work, as I am currently investigating that myself. That said, there are two other alternatives of which I am aware for doing this kind of work. First some libraries have been able to extract the titles and coverage statements from the profiles of their link resolver or PAM utilties and load that into an access database to generate a list of titles to hand off to staff for checking. And second, Elizabeth Winter at Georgia Technical University has created a tool to use for this as well. At the most recent Charleston Conference Jill Emery of UT Austin highlighted this as one alternative to use, and indicated that we could contact Elizabeth for details about it. Please don't hesitate to contact me off list or call if you have any questions! Hope this helps! Angie Lila (Angie) Ohler Head of Acquisitions University of Maryland Libraries McKeldin Library College Park, MD 20742-7011 301-405-9308 lohler@umd.edu -----Original Message----- From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Michael Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 4:34 PM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: [SERIALST] Online Work load vs Print 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 dont 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 Ive 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 _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com
