Hi, Sanjeet.
We also experience these kinds of problems from time to time and I am sure that all libraries that use databases like these (and what library does not use databases these days?) also experience problems. My priority for this type of situation is the patron in front of me and the patron having access to the article. Fixing the access is secondary. As far as what to do for the patron, if we do not have any other access to the article (in print or electronic format), I let the patron know to request the article on ILL. I also contact our ILL department in person and let them know of the situation so that the request does not get rejected by whomever processes the request. An alternative way to handle it would be when contacting the vendor about the problem to ask if they can provide a PDF of the needed article. I also contact tech support at the vendor/publisher and provide screen shots via email of exactly what we are seeing and a good description of the problem. I also emphasize to the vendor that we are paying for database access and that our patrons need access to the material. As someone else said earlier, it can take awhile to fix the problem, as many vendors will pass the problem off to a team of people who actually work on fixing it. It is not perfect, but it is the best scenario I have come up with so far. I would like to come up with a better one, one where the vendor tech support can look at the problem and fix it right away, but that is utopian.
Sincerely,
Barbara M. Pope, MALS
Periodicals/Reference Librarian
Pittsburg State University
Pittsburg KS 66762
620-235-4884
bpope@pittstate.edu
From: "Sanjeet Mann" <Sanjeet_Mann@REDLANDS.EDU>
To: SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2014 12:31:16 PM
Subject: [SERIALST] How long does it take to resolve problems with missing database content?
Dear SERIALST subscribers,
For the last three months I've been corresponding with Ebsco support staff about missing content from a journal aggregated in the Omnifile and Education Research Complete databases. As of this morning's email, the problem is still not solved, motivating
me to ask you all what you do when you become aware that content is missing from an aggregator database. Do you report the problem to technical support, or just fill the requested item via ILL and let it go? If you do try to get it fixed "properly", how long
does it take from the time your library user reports the problem to the time the vendor writes back to say the content has been loaded?
Thanks for considering this question,
Sanjeet Mann
Arts and Electronic Resources Librarian
Armacost Library, University of Redlands
(909) 748-8051
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