Hi Jason,

You've probably already found from responses that there are a lot of different approaches to updating and checking access for titles tracked in SFX. I work at a medium-large university library where we have a lot of titles in SFX. Between aggregator databases, publisher packages, OA titles, and individual purchases, we have many thousand periodicals represented there. Because of this, we wouldn't be able to check access on a monthly basis. Instead, we have a more streamlined system, but I think these tips would work for you too.

1. Aggregator databases and OA titles do not get checked on a systematic basis. These are just too big and fluctuate too often
2. Individual purchases get checked around renewal time.
3. Publisher packages, or individual purchases with many on the same publisher platform get checked primarily at the platform level. That is, we might have 20 journals on Taylor and Francis and 1,000 journals on Wiley. We may not check access to all of them, but we will scan through and make sure that the access dates in the license or renewal information match the thresholds in SFX. If it's a small package, we'll probably check access to each one a little after renewal time.
4. Weekly SFX KB updates: We won't even look at most updates to OA platforms or aggregator databases unless it seems they've (sometimes erroneously) changed the thresholds for a very large number of titles. For individual journal subscriptions and some publisher packages, we will look at the updates pretty carefully. Did the threshold change? Did we have a local threshold in place that is now redundant? Do we now need to put in a local threshold? We'll also check updated jkeys to see if we need to adjust proxy server configurations.

Keeping on top of reviewing the weekly updates can really prevent errors from popping up.

Chris Bulock
Electronic Resources Librarian
California State University Northridge

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 6:42 AM Jason Schafer <jschafer@clevelandart.onmicrosoft.com> wrote:

Hi Kat,

 

That’s exactly what I’m trying to do on this go round.  The first time through (it being my first time) I neglected to document which titles needed to be updated so now I’m just confused!  Hopefully, everything will start making more sense in a few months!

 

Thanks for the suggestion!

 

-Jason

 

Jason Schafer
T  216-707-2550

From: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG] On Behalf Of Kat Hart
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2016 11:15 AM


To: SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] SFX Threshold Management

 

Hi Jason,

 

You might go through the full list a few more times to see if the 10% that are problems are the same titles consistently having issues each month. Then, you can focus your efforts on these problem titles, which should take less of your time.

 

Kat

 

Katherine Hart, MLIS

Electronic & Continuing Resources Librarian

Georgia State University Library

100 Decatur Street, SE

Atlanta, GA 30303

404-413-2796

khart@gsu.edu

 

 

 

 

 

From: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG] On Behalf Of Jason Schafer
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2016 10:12 AM
To: SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG
Subject: [SERIALST] SFX Threshold Management

 

Please excuse any cross-posting!

 

In January, I took on the role of Serials and Electronic Resources Librarian at an institution that manages approximately 650 electronic journal subscriptions from a wide variety of vendors. This is a much larger collection than I am used to managing and I am new to SFX.

 

My questions here involve insuring that the thresholds for access to the journals displayed on our website are updated appropriately.  My predecessor in this position used to go through all 650 electronic journals once a month checking to see if any of the thresholds needed to be updated. I went through this process earlier in the year and it took me four full-time work days to check all of the journals and to make all of the changes necessary in SFX.  Adhering to my predecessor’s workflow, I began the process again yesterday.  I’m about 150 journal in, and so far around 10% of the journal thresholds have needed to be updated.  Some of the thresholds are locally created and others are global SFX thresholds. 

 

I realize that it’s possible to set moving threshold walls, but these settings aren’t capturing all of the fluctuation in so many different titles from so many different vendors. 

 

I’m already getting to the point where I’m about to suggest bringing in volunteers to do nothing but check thresholds since this could potentially take up so much of my time.  

 

So the questions are these:  Is this situation normal? How do other small-to-medium-sized libraries handle threshold management? 

 

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

-Jason

 

 

 

 

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