Date: Mon 17 Dec 2007 10:21:25 AM EST From: Michael <michaellampley@myway.com> Subject: RE: [SERIALST] Online Work load vs Print Below are the responses I got to my question. I'll leave it to you to make your own judgments. There was a sidebar discussion regarding an e-journal checking program presented at the Charleston Conference. I'll leave it to the presenters to discuss that on the list if they feel it is something they want to do. For the record, that system cannot follow a link to determine whether a particular link goes to the article or a table of contents. My feeling on such a system is it cannot exist in a meaningful way unless significant numbers of publishers get on board with metadata and such. --------------------____________________________________________________ ______________________ Date: Mon 10 Dec 2007 04:20:35 PM EST From: Mark Bazzetta <mjbazzetta@serialhive.com> Subject: RE: [SERIALST] Online Work load vs Print >From the responses you received on this topic, do you get a sense that some people might pay for a service to do all the manual checks? I'm a subscription agency and am always looking for value-added services I could provide. Thanks, Mark Mark J. Bazzetta SerialHive LLC www.serialhive.com (P) 773.244.2487 (F) 773.913.0680 Date: Tue 04 Dec 2007 12:42:12 PM EST From: Bluhm-Stieber, Hella <Hella.Bluhm-Stieber@hhs.co.santa-clara.ca.us> Subject: RE: [SERIALST] Online Work load vs Print Hello Michael, Most of the time I find out by accident that a link is not working, I rarely have the time to systematically go through our whole list. I think 10-25% is a good estimate. I feel that the checking could be done by non-librarians if they have exact instructions on what to test. Of course they need to be familiar with online access. The trouble-shooting is often so complicated that librarians or technical specialists need to do it. Good luck, Hella Hella Bluhm-Stieber, MLIS, AHIP Medical Librarian Milton J. Chatton Medical Library Santa Clara Valley Health & Hospital System 751 S. Bascom Ave. San Jose, CA 95128 (408) 885-5654 Fax (408) 885-5655 _______________________________________________ Date: Mon 03 Dec 2007 09:40:48 AM EST From: Barbara Pope <bpope@pittstate.edu> Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Online Work load vs Print If the task is just something like checking links to verify they work and the dates and making notes of problems, why not get a good student worker to do it? I know it's a boring task, but it's also one that would not require a lot of training to do. If one does not work, of course you or one of the other staff should be the one to fix it. I am getting ready to hire a student worker to do exactly this kind of work, among other tasks. Sincerely, Barbara Pope, MALS Periodicals/Reference Librarian Axe Library Pittsburg State University 1701 S. Broadway Pittsburg KS 66762 620-235-4884 bpope@pittstate.edu _________________________________________ Date: Fri 30 Nov 2007 09:42:19 AM EST From: Rothbaum, Ellen <Ellenr@NSHS.edu> Subject: RE: [SERIALST] Online Work load vs Print Dear Michael: Please summarize any replies to the list. We too struggle with this problem. With titles subscribed through EBSCO, we follow up when we get their journal announcements for additions/drops/changes. Otherwise, we make changes as our staff or patrons inform us of problems. I realize that this is viable only because our staff is small, and our patrons have no hesitation about informing us of problems. I do not have a good feel for the accuracy of our links. Some titles are rarely used, so more of those might be incorrect. The most frequently used ones probably are accurate at least 95 percent of the time. Good luck! Ellen Ellen Rothbaum, MS, AHIP Assistant Director Daniel Carroll Payson Medical Library North Shore University Hospital 300 Community Drive Manhasset, NY 11030 Voice: (516) 562-3424 Fax: (516) 562-2865 ellenr@nshs.edu ____________________________________________ Date: Fri 30 Nov 2007 09:26:55 AM EST From: van Sickle, Jennifer <Jennifer.vanSickle@trincoll.edu> Subject: RE: [SERIALST] Online Work load vs Print Hello Michael, This seems very labor intensive. I find that it's more beneficial to wait for someone to report a broken link, since I get an idea of which journals are being used (or not used). We also have Serials Solutions, which takes care of much of the behind the scenes maintenance. I think TDNet is another journal management system. You will probably hear from others re: robots that check links, but I have not used these. Hope this helps! Regards, Jennifer Jennifer van Sickle Serials Librarian & Sciences Coordinator Trinity College Library 300 Summit St. Hartford, CT USA 06106 jennifer.vansickle@trincoll.edu phone: 860-297-2250 fax: 860-297-2251 Date: Fri 30 Nov 2007 09:21:32 AM EST From: Fazio, Patricia <PFazio@camdencc.eduTo: Subject: RE: [SERIALST] Online Work load vs Print Michael, Great question. I'd like to hear the replies to this question as well. Also, I find that links I set up with individual publishers work when I set them up, but when I try again a few months later there will be a problem. Here is one I had recently: Has anyone found that some publishers who agree to give online access if you buy the print subscription will then hold off on sending the electronic content to the intermediary? I have 2 journals that have not provided (last I looked, which was a few weeks ago) 2007 content to Ingenta! I emailed the publisher, but got a customer service run around. These things then take time to pursue the correct person and complain that they should live up to their agreement. If you are able, can you summarize the replies for the group? Thank you, Patricia Fazio Collection Development Librarian Camden County College Blackwood, NJ 08012 856 227 -7200 x4402 ____________________________ Date: Fri 30 Nov 2007 09:04:10 AM EST From: Elizabeth Appleton <mlbeaa@gwumc.edu> Subject: RE: Online Work load vs Print Hello Michael, We have been working on a similar project which we have entitled "link checking." We've been doing basically the same thing: generating lists of titles organized by publisher host and having students go through these title by title, verifying that the access is what we say it is on our E-journals A to Z listing (we have SerialsSolutions AMS). My perception of our error rate is closer to 10%-15%, with most of those errors being that our listing reflects less access than we actually have (the list says 1997 when our access actually goes back to 1995, etc.). This varies by publisher host more than at the title level. To be blunt, this task is absolutely mind numbing--the only skills needed for it are clicking a mouse, being able to tell what does and doesn't "match," and being able to stay awake while doing so. I've told a few systems vendors (Swets, SerialsSolutions, etc.) about the need to automate this--to my knowledge nothing like this exists yet. I hope they come out with something soon! My opinion is that skilled staff members' time (I'm talking both librarians and paraprofessionals) can be better put to use. We have our student workers on the circulation desk do about an hour of link checking per shift, and then turn in any problems the come across to me. I'm still finalizing the process (since we just started doing this in October), but I foresee that as we get more comfortable with this, the paraprofessional in charge of managing serials will do the initial maintenance on the problems and pass the "big ones" on to me. Best of luck! I hope you summarize for the list. Regards, Betsy Appleton From: Lila Ohler [mailto: lohler@umd.edu] Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:48:39 -0500 Subject: RE: [SERIALST] Online Work load vs Print 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 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 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 appreciated. Michael Lampley Serials Librarian Texas Christian University TCU Box 2984000 2913 West Lowden St. Fort Worth, TX 76129 817 257 6485
