Cheryl,

I suppose I fit into the category of "foolhardy." Yes, I am attempting
at present to put individual holdings in for journals listed in
Lexis/Nexis. I've "completed" ProQuest, and EBSCO looms on the horizon.
It is intensely frustrating as the holdings seem to change by whimsey,
and as one of my colleagues aptly describes it: "It's like trying to
nail jello on the wall." Will be glad to offer any help I can, but it's
mainly perserverance and data entry manually.

Jane Prokesh
Serials Cataloger
University of Texas at Dallas
x2962
<jprokesh@UTDALLAS.EDU>

On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 10:15:57 -0500 "Cheryl L. Conway"
<cconway@COMP.UARK.EDU> wrote:

> I am forwarding this topic for my department head.  You can respond
> directly to Jennifer at jkolmes@comp.uark.edu.  Thanks in advance for
> your assistance.
>
>
> "My subject is what they're calling "aggregator databases."  You know,
> like EBSCO's Academic Search Elite,  Bell and Howell's ProQuest Direct,
> and Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe.  Essentially, they are services
> offering access to full-text versions of varying runs of serial titles.
> The PCC Standing Committee on Automation's Task Force on Journals in
> Aggregator Databases was working on an EBSCO demonstration project a
> few months ago--has anyone heard anything about that lately?  As I
> recall, they were leaning toward recommending that holdings for
> individual titles in these aggregators be made commercially available
> for loading into ILSs, as opposed to libraries trying to keep this kind
> of information current and local on their own.
>
> Anyway, my question is:  Are there any brave (or foolhardy, as the
> point of view dictates) souls out there attempting to integrate
> holdings data from these behemoths MANUALLY into their catalog records?
> By "manually," I do not mean to exclude anyone who may be utitlizing
> macros or other automated shortcuts; I mean by simply entering the data
> record-by-record and attempting to keep the data up to date in a
> similar fashion."