Re: Coverage loads - quality of data Hoyte, Daniel 16 Oct 2008 16:06 UTC
When I was investigating ERM products, I had the opportunity to set up an open-source ERM. While doing that, I had the "pleasure" of dealing with creating and loading coverage data, based on files from our vendors. Although we left Serials Solutions for a new vendor, I have great respect for what they try to accomplish. We did not do a formal assessment of the coverage situation, but here are some things that we observed when we were investigating ERM products. + The basic coverage date that is provided by publishers and aggregators is all over the map. Some is very good, including title tracing. Others cannot even get the dates within their own interface to match. + The vendor that we were using, Serials Solutions, did a good job of getting it right, when you consider what they have to work with. + There were times, when for whatever reason our vendor would not make corrections. We just had to live with it. In our library, we do not have the staffing with the required background to systematically match coverage, to title runs, to entitlements. We have our current vendor (not one of the ones mentioned below) make corrections. We find that our data tends to be somewhat cleaner with our current vendor. Daniel Hoyte Senior Systems Technician Chapman University Leatherby Libraries (714) 532-7745 hoyte@chapman.edu AIM/Yahoo IM: chaphoyte /(bb|[^b]{2})/ that is the Question -----Original Message----- From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Cahill, Helen Sent: Monday, October 13, 2008 5:08 PM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: [SERIALST] Coverage loads - quality of data Hello all, I wonder if there is anybody out there who has assessed the quality of data being offered by the coverage load vendors? I'm principally interested in Serials Solutions, Ebsco A-Z, and III's CASE product, but would also welcome comments on any others. Here is an example from the coverage loads for ACM: "SIGART bulletin" was published 1990-1998 with previous and later titles. There is (to my cataloguing mind) a problem over the coverage that is available from SS, EAZ and CASE: they list the coverage for SIGART bulletin to be 1970-1998, and don't have any listing for the previous title. I've looked in a few catalogues (randomly) and it seems to me that libraries are simply accepting that (wrong) coverage data. How do your patrons find the online version of "SIGART newsletter"? Has that bothered anybody out there enough to have attempted to get these vendors to properly match the coverage to the title runs? Or, are we so seriously understaffed world-wide that we can't either do the checking & correcting or pressure the vendors to produce accurate information? Has anybody ever offered to clean up the data offered by these vendors to benefit all others? I'm feeling like this is going to develop into one of those Publisher vs Vendor, IT vs Cataloguer debates, but I'm always mindful of what our library patrons want to see when they look on our OPACs. Thanks! Helen Cahill Cataloguer, Collection Services Massey University Library Private Bag 11054 Palmerston North 4442 NEW ZEALAND Ph: + 64 6 350 5799 ext 7876 Fax: + 64 6 350 5692 emai: H.Cahill@massey.ac.nz<mailto:H.Cahill@massey.ac.nz> http://library.massey.ac.nz