Do you want to include urls for titles you don't have access to? Some
libraries do, under the assumption I suppose that if the user wants the
article he'll try to order it from the publisher. Since we pay for all
document delivery requests for our patrons from items we don't own, we want
them to order these through us. And we certainly dont want to encourage them
to pay publishers to get articles that are from journals we get in print but
not electronicaly. The way I personally look at it, our catalog is a link to
things we have. OCLC, PUBMED, etc.are links to everything, whether we have it
or not.

Even  for the ones we have, based on our experience, it is not wise to have
these display if you don't check them individually, though I know some
libraries do so and find the error rate low enough.  Even if a link does work,
it may not necessarily be to what we consider the best access point for the
specific title in a publishers' web.

Yes, it is absurd for every library to do this independently. I think the
analogy is to when libraries did original cataloging for every item they
bought.
--
David Goodman
Biology Librarian, and
Co-Chair, Electronic Journals Task Force
Princeton University Library
dgoodman@princeton.edu         http://www.princeton.edu/~biolib/
phone: 609-258-3235            fax: 609-258-2627

Jerri Swinehart wrote:
>
>     My first impression of the URLs is that there may be an electronic
> version of the serial. Here at Kresge we have cataloged the journals that
> are part of the MUSE  project. The other URLs on the serials' records are
> still problematic as far as Kresge is concerned. We are in the process of
> considering our options with them. Whether to delete? Whether to leave and
> hope patrons don't complain? How to track changes? You get the picture.
>
>     Jerri Swinehart
>     Manager-Technical Services
>     Oakland University
>     Kresge Library
>     Rochester, Michigan 48309-4484
>     swinehar@oakland.edu
>
>     "Denial is a wonderful place to live but you have to watch out for the
> crocodiles."