Good afternoon,

I have been working with Ebsco for some time, and it is very easy to claim with them.  I assume, if you have been using Ebsco for some time, that you already have an account (or your library has someone that has an admin account) on Ebsconet.  There are some links under the “My Orders” tab, after you log in, for “My Claims,” “New Claims,” and “Claim Checker.”  If you don’t have these links, you may have to ask your customer service rep to add them.  It is, though, much easier to just look up the title you need to claim in “My Orders,” go to your most recent order, click “Claim This Order” at the top, fill in the information, and it goes to your rep automatically.  Or you can just email your rep with what you are missing.

Here is my procedure for claiming:

1.       I use the Acquisitions module of Voyager to check-in all magazines, journals, and newspapers that we get in the mail.  I see that Millennium has something similar, though perhaps your library uses the Kardex cards to check things in?  In that case you have to rely on whoever is checking in mail, or a manual search, to see what you are missing.  If this is the case, I would update immediately, as using the computer is much more efficient.  Anyways, every week or so, I get the system to pull up a list of items that we should have gotten but didn’t.  For instance, when I make an entry for a magazine that comes monthly, I tell the system to notify me when something is a month overdue.  Quarterlies get more leeway, weeklies and dailies less.   Every so often I make a manual sweep of our collection to make sure we have current issues of everything, as the system sometimes misses things.

2.       After I have my list of things I need to claim, I go out amongst the collection and double-check to make sure that they truly aren’t there.  Sometimes my student workers forget to check things in.

3.       After I have my list of issues  that definitely aren’t there, I research each item to make sure that it was indeed published.  Often the case is that an issue was never published or was combined with another issue.  I can then remove the issue from Acquisitions.  With Ebsco, checking these things is easy.  Under each title entry they have a link to a list of volume/issue information that will usually tell you if and when an issue is published.  You may have to go directly to the publisher’s website, though.  If I see that something is behind schedule, I won’t claim it just then.

4.       After weeding out everything that doesn’t truly need to be claimed, I proceed to either make a claim on Ebsconet or notify publishers directly if we don’t get the title through Ebsco.  If something is really behind, and I see that new issues have been published, I don’t bother to claim it on Ebsconet, but email our customer service rep directly, as that often indicates a disruption in service, often due to a payment mishap i.e. publisher entered us for one year, but we paid for three, etc.  I also email our rep if I keep claiming an issue, yet it never comes.

5.       Every month I do the “Claim Checker” online, where I update them on whether we got what we claimed or not.    

I hope this helped.

Abbigail Gregg

Library Technician

Geneva College - McCartney Library

acgregg@geneva.edu 

724-847-6693

Hello,

I am new to SERIALST and was looking for some assistance.  I have just started in Serials at the University of Colorado-Denver.  My position is a new position.  The person who used to handle Serials retired about 4 years ago and in the meantime bits and pieces have gone to different people.  The claiming process has been somewhat overlooked and there are not clear procedures on the process.  Does anyone have any claiming procedures for Millennium and Ebsco they wouldn’t mind sharing with me?  Thanks!

Sincerely,

Katy DiVittorio

Serials Acquisitions Specialist

Auraria Library

1100 Lawrence Street

Denver, Colorado 80204

303-556-4513 (tel)

303-556-2623 (fax)

katy.divittorio@ucdenver.edu

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