Dorothy,
I’m sure you’ll get lots of opinions about this. If you’ve got more electronic holdings than print and you have a link resolver, I think it might be less work and cost less money to load and maintain your print holdings in your SFX knowledgebase rather than loading e-journal records in your catalog. Most medium to large-scale libraries that load electronic journal records outsource that task to their link resolver vendor (e.g. Serials Solutions, Ex Libris, III, etc). The vendors, for a fee, send the libraries MARC record updates based on what they have activated in their knowledgebases and those records are loaded into the catalog. The update intervals vary.
This is just my opinion, but unless you’ve got a lot of spare time and a few dedicated staff positions, you won’t be able to keep up with all the changes amongst aggregated databases and even a dozen packages. The MARC records service is a better option if you want to go that route.
Last, and this is also just my opinion, but I think the inclusion of print titles in the link resolver knowledgebase is the best option and the MARC record service is of secondary importance. I’ll openly admit that the library catalog is not my area of expertise and also that I don’t think libraries should focus on them as much as we do. The loading of print records into the knowledgebase is not maintenance-free because print holdings change as well, but if and when a patron does click on your link resolver button in an A&I database, they’ll get a record back that tells them if you have it either electronically or in print. Most patrons, in my experience, don’t want to (or don’t know that they need to) re-execute a search in the catalog to find out if you have the print journal or not and they end up thinking if it’s not available electronically, it’s not available at all.
I’m sure plenty of folks will disagree with me, but every library operates differently and we all need to make a choice that works best for our institutions.
--
Chad Hutchens
Electronic Resources Librarian
University of Wyoming Libraries
Dept 3334, 1000 E University Ave.
Laramie, WY 82071-2000
Ph: (307) 766-5560
From: "Notarnicola, Dorothy Lynn (LARC-B702)[TESSADA & ASSOC INC]" <dorothy.l.notarnicola@NASA.GOV>
Reply-To: "SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum" <SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU>
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:34:05 -0600
To: "SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum" <SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU>
Subject: [SERIALST] Electronic Journal Cataloging
Dear Serialists:
We are trying to figure out the best way to let our patrons know what our complete e-journal holdings are. We are using SFX as a URL handler and A to Z list provider. Our online catalog is SIRSI.
NASA Langley has converted most of our serials collection to electronic holdings. The staff is of mixed opinion on how to handle our electronic holdings, especially if we want to have a single ‘catalog of record.’ Since serials packages change, archive packages keep popping up, vendors are swapped out and subscriptions dropped as budgets change we are finding that maintaining both SFX and the online catalog to be time consuming and a duplication of effort. (Especially with a staff of 2!)
For example, we have all the Wiley and almost all the Springer journal titles through one of the special package arrangements but we haven’t loaded the 3000+ journal records into our online catalog, only into the URL handler. And what if we drop one of the packages next year….
How are other libraries handling their online holdings? Are you maintaining the actual holdings in the online catalog? If so, do you use a URL handler? If you have a URL handler do you also maintain a complete holdings statement in the catalog?
Thank you in advance for your replies.
Dorothy Notarnicola
Acquisitions Librarian
NASA Langley Research Center
MS 185 * Bldg 1194 * Room 306
Hampton, VA 23681-2199
Phone: 757-864-7142
Email: dorothy.l.notarnicola@nasa.gov