Thanks, Pat! After I finished writing the post, I thought I'd better
buckle down and come up with some suggestions, so I put down very
quickly my preliminary categories, copied below--this is by no means
perfect, it's just what I thought of at first go. (If you can match your
databases with the various permutations I came up with, I must have made
myself clear; if not...) What I was thinking was, suppose you have a
title in print *and* in an aggregator. Then, depending on how important
it is to keep getting it (and whether you need cover-to-cover, PDF,
whatever), you could classify the aggregator "copy" as adequate or not,
as in: "We also have a duplicate in a Category V database, so it's a)
nice to have, but ok if it stops coming, so cancel the print, or b) not
ok if it stops coming--don't cancel the print unless we can get this in
a Category I and then we'll check our access periodically, or c) must be
Category IV or higher to cancel the print, or d) ok to cancel print but
put it on the list to check access and we'll look for other options if
it disappears. Briefly, for the access part of it, the technical issues
involved would also be categorized: Category I: contact the publisher or
your subscription vendor if access is lost (sort of like we would now
for print); Category V: contact the aggregator, etc. At least this is
what I tried to do, this is still *very* sketchy, but is just to give
you all an idea of what I'm talking about. What do you think? How could
I improve the categories? Feedback welcome!

Sue

Patricia Thompson wrote:
> I don't have an answer, but I appreciate the question!
>
> I've struggled with this too, because after doing this for a while,
> while I may understand the difference between these types of
> resources, I don't have anything to call them, and it has caused
> confusion with other staff and made it difficult to explain to other
> staff how to handle each "type" of database-- which codes to use, what
> budget line to charge it to, etc. And I also agree that "what we call
> them is important both for evaluating and for arranging/keeping
> access." Not all electronic access is created equal!
>
> Pat Thompson
-------------------------------------------------------------

*Major Database Categories*

(based on: stability of included titles, means of access, guarantee of
perpetual access, organization by title/subject/collection, years of
coverage/embargos, full-text availability)

I. Full-text individual titles; primary publisher or society; their own
interface; there may be a license provision for perpetual access to
paid-for content for libraries (perpetual access may be through Portico,
requiring libraries to belong to Portico and pay an annual fee; Portico
access depends on a “triggering event.”)

II. Full-text package; primary publisher or society; available by
collection or by subject; their own interface; perpetual access
(perpetual access may be through Portico)

III. Secondary interface (host); primary publisher, sometimes includes
licensed content from other publishers; available by collection or by
subject; perpetual access with possibility of fixed wall for content
licensed from other publishers

IV. Secondary interface (host) with content licensed from primary
publisher; may include perpetual access even if content moved to another
interface, but transition may involve temporary loss of access or
require libraries to arrange new access

V. Vendor interface; includes A & I, full-text; and selected full-text
licensed from primary publishers; titles included are subject to change
without notice; may include embargos (/aggregator databases/)

VI. Archival individual journal titles (back issues); primary publisher;
perpetual access (perpetual access may be through Portico)

VII. Archival package; primary publisher; perpetual access (perpetual
access may be through Portico)

VIII. Archival package; secondary interface; perpetual access; moving
wall or fixed wall

IX. Abstracting and Indexing (A & I) only; may have linking arrangements
available if activated, or include free full-text where available; may
be a client-server interface rather than web accessible

X. Freely available web search engines/databases; may include ads

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>
> At 11:00 AM 7/25/2008, you wrote:
>> Hi, everybody,
>>
>> Here's a Friday question for the group that I'd be interested in
>> seeing some discussion on: What do you call the various types of
>> databases?
>> A long time ago, I wrote an article for the Biz of Acq column in
>> Against the Grain about defining more precisely how we refer to
>> databases and types of access to electronic journals ("A Database By
>> Any Other Name?" _Against the Grain_, v.14#2, April 2002), and I
>> think it might still be a pertinent question. (Coincidentally, I
>> found out after I started drafting this post that the article will
>> soon be online on the Against the Grain website, because it's
>> included in a reading list for an ALA course, Fundamentals of
>> Electronic Resources Acquisitions. Not sure how soon.)
>>
>> For me, when I think of a "true" electronic journal, I think first of
>> those that come from the publisher--the equivalent of the print, in
>> the publisher's own interface, whether bundled or individual or
>> packaged. Then I think of those that come from the publisher but
>> "hosted" through a second-party interface. Thirdly, there are the
>> aggregators--third party vendors that assemble electronic versions of
>> licensed periodicals content into their own databases, with a common
>> interface--in this case, we subscribe to the *database* as a whole,
>> not the individual titles (and access to any of the individual titles
>> included can change without notice to us, as so many have noted--they
>> are not stable or archival, so if that's important for a title, think
>> carefully about aggregator access.) The crucial difference, from my
>> point of view, is *who owns the content* and is either publishing it
>> or licensing a version (or "selected" content, as they sometimes
>> refer to it, rather than cover-to-cover) or allowing indexing or
>> abstracting (A & I) only. Another variable is whether the version is
>> HTML or PDF, whether it includes images, etc., etc. It's all in how
>> they're sliced and diced. So do you all call them something else or
>> think of them differently? I think what we call them is important
>> both for evaluating and for arranging/keeping access.
>>
>> Aggregator databases are great for giving us lots and lots of
>> content, but some of that is "extra," in that we might not pay for,
>> say, Regional Cheerleader E-Forum for the years 1992-1998 (a title I
>> made up, but if you have access to an A to Z list, take a look
>> sometime if you haven't, by title or by subject/category & dates of
>> coverage, at what's in there. Someone said that publishers
>> sell/license what they have a lot of, not necessarily what you want!
>> I'm not faulting their business model of generating revenue so much
>> as saying we need to be aware of what we're getting. I think it all
>> comes down to licensing. I sometimes compare the complicated models
>> to cable subscriptions--some titles/channels are more desirable,
>> others are thrown in with the basic for good measure, to add to the
>> title count. For "premium" titles, we may have to go direct.) But is
>> there a better term than "aggregator" that makes sense to people?
>>
>> Anyway, for a package such as Project Muse, there are both their own
>> publications ("primary" online journals? "publisher" online journals?
>> what do you think we should call them?) and some "secondary
>> interface" ones that they have licensed from other publishers (which
>> is why there's a fixed wall for some, when they lost the licensing
>> rights as those publishers pulled out to mount their own interfaces.)
>> JSTOR, to me, is an archival, second-party database, (and they've had
>> some of the same licensing issues in the past.) Some databases are
>> subject-specific, too, and might be from one or several publishers.
>> Some publishers also have fixed bundles or packages, perhaps arranged
>> by subject *or* collection, with no choice of individual journals;
>> others will let you order a la carte, so to speak, and price it
>> differently. It seems to be that it would be useful for us to have a
>> more standardized way of referring to online journals and databases,
>> so we know we're on the same page when we discuss evaluating them or
>> dealing with loss of access to individual titles or packages, so I'm
>> interested in hearing other thoughts on this. What do you call the
>> different types of online continuing resources? Could we/should we
>> give them categories or would that make it worse? Sorry this is so
>> long. Thanks for your thoughts!
>>
>> Sue
--

Sue Wiegand

Periodicals Librarian

123 Cushwa-Leighton Library

Saint Mary’s College

Notre Dame, IN 46556

574 284-4789

swiegand@saintmarys.edu <mailto:swiegand@saintmarys.edu>