Re: E-journal holdings on a web listing Mary Williams 13 Mar 2001 00:15 UTC
Kay, > * Who decided on which data elements to display in your > e-journal web listing? I did, in consultation with our systems and reference librarians; mostly, they don't care as long as it's consistent; > * If you decided *not* to include holdings as part of this > display, what were your reasons? I didn't put them in, as I would have to maintain them, and I really don't have time (I think you'll hear this a lot.) > * If you decided to include holdings as part of this > display, how are you creating and maintaining this > information? Is it automatically generated from your OPAC > (please specify which ILS)? Is it vendor-supplied (please > list specific vendors if so)? Did you write in-house > scripts to cull this information from the OPAC, vendor > data, in-house files (e.g., Access databases)? Did you type > it in by hand?? We're looking at cataloging the ejournals we have access to, many of which we don't have records for. (But I really hate to tackle this for the journals in commercial databases because the content can change.) We're hoping to buy software that will generate the HTML pages from the catalog and thus cut down on maintenance issues. I believe that the software my systems librarian mentioned would show the holdings from the MARC record. > We are reevaluating our e-journal list display, so I would > love to hear what other libraries' experiences have been in > this process, particularly other large academic libraries. And I think that you have to re-evaluate it periodically as the technology changes. One problem with holdings for the journals is that your access really depends on your keeping a current subscription. Should you decide to end it, your rights to any archives usually disappear. We participate in Project Muse and JSTOR, and I'm really excited about both. JSTOR's archives are wonderful, but since they have a moving wall on the upper end of their holdings, I put in a note that holdings "since v#, (year) are available. For Muse, which also has a moving wall (but on the lower end of their holdings), I put in a note that current issues are available. We can buy MARC records from JSTOR with the URL already in place. We haven't done it yet because I think we already have records for a good many of them. It's on my to do list to find out exactly how many. I hope this helps. There is no right or wrong way, you have to do what serves your patrons best and doesn't commit you to endless maintenance. > I searched the SERIALST archive and found some useful > related information, but nothing that was as specific as I > need. > > Thank you in advance. > ---------------------- > Kay Teel > Serials Catalog Librarian > Stanford University Libraries > kteel@stanford.edu -- Mary W. Williams Periodicals Librarian Dick Smith Library Box T-0450 Tarleton State University Stephenville, TX 76402 (254) 968-9868 (254) 968-9467 FAX email: mwilliams@vms.tarleton.edu