Hi Cyndi,

You can certainly do as Sarah suggests and contact EBSCO with any
changes that should be made globally.

"If the coverage change affects all subscribers globally, then we report
the new dates to our vendor so that the change can be made in the
central/global knowledge base for all users.  If the coverage change is
the result of a local subscription change (ie, you cancel an e-journal
subscription and lose access to backfiles, maintaining access only to
subscribed content), then we make the change in our local system and
maintain it on an ongoing basis."

" To jump on an even taller soapbox, NISO and UKSG have a joint
initiative to address this issue by recommending a standard format for
the exchange of holdings metadata between content providers, knowledge
base vendors, and librarians.  More information on the initiative can be
found on the KBART (Knowledge Bases And Related Tools) site at:
http://www.uksg.org/kbart/endorsement  The recommended data fields can
be found at: http://www.uksg.org/kbart/s5/guidelines/data_field_labels"

As she also mentions, EBSCO and other vendors are dependent on
information from publishers. EBSCO endorses the KBART Recommended
Practice and is committed to ongoing support of the KBART initiative.
Standards would allow EBSCO to provide more accurate holdings
information in the knowledge base. As Sarah notes, it is a three way
partnership between the content providers, vendors, and librarians.

I don't usually jump in on discussions but thought I'd share the
perspective from this side.

Melissa

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Cynthia Adamo
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 2:03 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Confirming E-access dates

This whole issue of trying to determine the access we actually have to
our
electronic journal titles is definitely frustrating.

This is an issue I face, which I would love some advice/input on:

Once I find out the information listed on my A-to-Z list of ejournals is
incorrect - then what should I do?

I can manually change it myself on our A-to-Z admin site, but I've been
told
by our vendor that once I enter "custom holdings" onto a title, they'll
no
longer continue to update our holdings, (which they would otherwise do,
whenever publishers send them updates).

So if I do enter a manual change, it becomes my responsibility to stay
on
top of this title and make sure I'm aware of any future changes in
coverage... which kind of defeats one of the benefits of working with a
subscription vendor.

Should I make a request that the vendor change the dates each time I
find a
discrepancy, and then wait for the changes to be made?

What are you folks doing in this situation, if you're ever faced with
it?

Thanks for any input you can send!

Take care,
Cyndi

On Tue, 2 Nov 2010 16:17:54 +0000, Skwor, Jeanette <skworj@UWGB.EDU>
wrote:

>Daniel said:
>Your best bet is to go into the interface for the journal and see what
you
can get into.
>
>I do this consistently.  In fact, it's how the situation came up, in
that I
regularly have different access than we think we have or should have or
SFX
states we have.
>
>So . . . you accept whatever is there until it changes, then accept
that?
>
>And believe me, you don't sound any more pessimistic than I feel!  15
or so
years of serials librarianship does strengthen the skeptical muscle.
:-)
>Thanks,
>Jeanette Skwor