Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 10:54:07 -0500
From: Barbara Weir <bweir1@SWARTHMORE.EDU>
Subject: alerting services

[This is being cross-posted to other lists; please excuse the duplication.]

We are considering offering an alerting / document service like Reveal or
ISI's Journal Tracker to our faculty as an alternative to purchasing some
of the journals we now buy.  What we want to do is set up a deposit account
and allow faculty to order articles from the table of contents information
that is sent to their email accounts.

Before we get into this, we want to know who else has tried this or is
doing it now.  We'd  like to know:

1.  What service you are using?

2.  Are you and your faculty satisfied with the service?  Timeliness of
receipt of articles?  Availability of articles requested?

3.  Do you allow faculty to place orders themselves, or do they request
articles through an ILL or Doc. Delivery office in the library?

4.  Do you offer this service to students?  If so, are they allowed to
place orders themselves, or do they go through ILL or Doc. Delivery?

5.  How much money have you allotted for this service?  Do you find that
you have enough budgeted to cover expenses?

6.  Are the faculty ordering more than, fewer than, or about the number of
articles you expected them to order?

7.  Do you find some people go crazy and order way too many expensive
articles?

8.  What problems or surprises have you had?

I would be happy to summarize this for the list if others are interested.
Thanks in advance to all who respond!

Barbara Weir

 =============================================================================
Barbara Weir                                     610/328-8443
Acting Technical  Services Librarian       bweir1@swarthmore.edu
McCabe Library
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore, PA  19081