A free tool that we have made available to help libraries check the links to
their electronic resources is the Link Evaluator Firefox extension.
http://evaluator.oclc.org/

To use it to monitor resources, you just need a web page with links to the
resources you want to check. Of course it is not as thorough or as flexible
as having a student check links by hand, but it's a lot faster.

Eric

On 1/26/09 3:23 PM, "Gormley, Alice" <alice.gormley@MARQUETTE.EDU> wrote:

> We have a similar ongoing regular process in place, usually using multiple
> students whose regular library jobs necessitate "being there" but not always
> busy.  I pull e-journal title lists from Millennium which are then checked in
> the public opac, clicking through the links to check holdings, access, etc.
> If problem/discrepancy is discovered, a note is made; completed pages are
> returned to me to verify what the student found and to deal with problems.
> It's a very valuable process for us.  And a worthwhile use of student time.
> Often an access problem for a title is just the tip of the iceberg for a
> publisher or database and I can resolve this before it's a problem for our
> patrons.  I get regular clean-up lists from database maintenance of links that
> don't go anywhere (from our automated link checker) but this titles level
> checking assures us that the active link is both accurate and that the
> resource offers us actual access.
>
> Alice Gormley
> Serials Librarian
> Marquette University
> Raynor Memorial Libraries

Eric Hellman, Director                      OCLC New Jersey
hellmane@oclc.org                           2 Broad St., Suite 208
tel 1-973-509-7800                          Bloomfield, NJ 07003
http://nj.oclc.org/