7-25-08

Ken,

I do not really have a specific job description for this task, and I do
not hire any one person to exclusively do it.

My student assistants share the task of online access verification. It
is just one of their various duties. I call it "URL & Access Checking".
We have close to 1900 online titles to check. I approximate that it
takes several weeks (a few months) to complete the process when my
students work at it for about a total of 3-4 hours a week.

For the students to easily call up the titles in the OPAC to test and
verify, all of our online journals are coded with a local subject code
starting with JEX, JEX1, JEX2, etc. The students work their
way through checking each grouping of titles, and they simply list
problem titles, along with a brief note concerning the problems
encountered. (URL not working, no access to articles, etc.)

Then, with problem titles listed in groupings, I can resolve access
problems to all titles of the same publisher/access provider at one time.

I don't have the students check the detailed holdings, but that would be
an excellent added step. For the active subscriptions, I have the
students make sure that the most recent issues are accessible to ensure
that our yearly subscriptions have been activated. If no new current
year's issues are yet available, those titles are listed and rechecked
later.

Hope this helps.

Trudi

Trudi van Beuningen-Hamilton
Technical Services Assistant-Serials
____________________________________________
Periodicals Department
Seeley G. Mudd Library, Lawrence University
113 S. Lawe Street, Appleton, WI 54911-5683 USA
e-mail: Trudi.vanBeuningen@lawrence.edu
Tel./Voice Mail: 920-832-6964   FAX: 920-832-6967

Ken Siegert wrote: 7-24-08
> Hello!
>
> I was wondering if anyone would be willing to share how they handle
> online access verification as a student job.
>
> For the last several years, the number of our online access titles
> has grown significantly (currently at 2500+).  Typically, I have my
> student workers look-up each title (listed on a spreadsheet) and
> verify that 1) the URL works, 2) our holdings statement matches our
> access and 3) they indicate on the spreadsheet if anything needs to
> be updated/changed.
>
> Obviously, this student job is not exciting, and it takes a student
> who enjoys monotonous work.  I try not to have a student work on this
> for more than an hour at a time.  I have only had one student worker
>  actually say that she enjoyed the job.
>
> Here are some questions that I have --
>
> Do you hire one or two student workers to exclusively work on this
> task?  Or do you "share the wealth" with all of your student workers?
>  Would anyone have a job description that they'd be willing to share?
> I have attempted to write a job description for this task, but it
> typically doesn't get much interest.
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Ken
>
> ---------- Ken Siegert Acquisitions Assistant Electronic Resources &
> Periodicals / U.S. Documents Shadek-Fackenthal Library Franklin &
> Marshall College P.O. Box 3003 Lancaster, PA  17604-3003
>
> Phone -     (717) 291-4219 Fax -     (717) 291-4160