It hasn't always been the case in the past, but I currently have an excellent student worker who started working for me in January 2009.  Maggie spends about 4 hours each week, looking up our list of 4500 online titles, verifying that 1) the link is active, 2) we have some sort of access and 3) that our holdings statement is correct.  If something isn't right, then she marks the title on the spreadsheet so that I can investigate further.  

She is able to work through the list about every 6 months or so.  And even though she goes them fairly often, she still finds problems (around 50 legitimate problems that need attention).  Since most of my previous students felt that this project was literally torture, I let my student know all the time how much she is appreciated.

The titles on the list are paid subscriptions, Jstor, Project Muse, ACS, etc, and are in our Catalog, a separate Journals List and also Serials Solutions (we have about 40,000 unique titles listed in Serials Solutions).  Our Catalog and Journals List holdings statements are specific, down to the volume, issue (when needed) and year, while I stay with the more generic year for Serials Solutions.

--Ken

---------- 

Ken Siegert
Acquisitions Assistant
Electronic Resources & Periodicals / U.S. Documents
Shadek-Fackenthal Library
Franklin & Marshall College
P.O. Box 3003
Lancaster, PA  17604-3003

Phone -     (717) 291-4219
Fax -     (717) 291-4160

On Nov 2, 2010, at 12:17 PM, Skwor, Jeanette wrote:

Daniel said:
Your best bet is to go into the interface for the journal and see what you can get into.
 
I do this consistently.  In fact, it’s how the situation came up, in that I regularly have different access than we think we have or should have or SFX states we have.
 
So . . . you accept whatever is there until it changes, then accept that?
 
And believe me, you don’t sound any more pessimistic than I feel!  15 or so years of serials librarianship does strengthen the skeptical muscle.  :-)
Thanks,
Jeanette Skwor
 
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Hoyte, Daniel
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 10:55 AM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Confirming E-access dates
 
This is going to sound pessimistic…
Your best bet is to go into the interface for the journal and see what you can get into.
 
 A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to select my institution’s  new ERM/link resolver. Among our options was going open source, so I had the opportunity to acquire and use title data from our vendors / publishers. Let’s just say that while the majority of the data was good; enough of the data was inaccurate to the point that I now have a healthy distrust of publisher access data. (This was the situation nfor subscribed e-journals as opposed to aggregated databases.)
 
Daniel Hoyte M.R.S.
Senior Library Systems Technician
Leatherby Libraries, Chapman University
714-532-7745
Skype: daniel.hoyte
 
// Dear maintainer:
// Once you are done trying to 'optimize' this routine,
// and have realized what a terrible mistake that was,
// please increment the following counter as a warning
// to the next guy:
// total_hours_wasted_here = 16
                              --Unknown coder       
 
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Skwor, Jeanette
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 7:57 AM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [SERIALST] Confirming E-access dates
 
We are discussing how best to determine exactly what period of access we are supposed to have for each of our electronic titles.  The thought has been put forth to contact the publisher - that publishers would have a set period for all of their titles and we could go by that information.
 
Skeptic that I am, I am a) not trusting publishers actually do have such a policy at the ready, and b) that they do not change it at will.  I am willing, and hoping, actually, to be wrong.
 
So - looking to the cumulated wisdom of Serialsters - any information, thoughts, experience you are willing to share.  If you have set about determining that sort of information, how have you done it, and how successful have you been?  Time involved?  Other thoughts?
 
Thanks,
Jeanette L. Skwor 
Serials Dept., Cofrin Library 
University of WI-Green Bay 
2420 Nicolet Drive 
Green Bay, WI  54311-7001
"Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries." 
                              Anne Herbert, The Whole Earth Catalog