A huge and growing problem that no one so far seems able/willing to tackle.
I report these to Ebsco A-to-Z all the time, but they are dependent on the
publisher loads.
Former titles are getting lost as they don't show up in the databases at
all.
Many publishers are guilty of this.
Who's doing it right? Science Direct and PubMed Central to name a couple.
They should be the accepted model.
Any ideas would be welcome on how the library community can bring pressure
to fix this.

Lucy Wrightington, Senior Librarian
Dickerman Library
Wadsworth Center, N.Y. State Dept. of Health
Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12201

             "Stokes, Judith"
             <JStokes@RIC.EDU>
             Sent by:                                                   To
             "SERIALST:                SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
             Serials in                                                 cc
             Libraries
             Discussion Forum"                                     Subject
             <SERIALST@LIST.UV         Re: [SERIALST] Coverage loads -
             M.EDU>                    quality of data

             10/14/2008 09:39
             AM

             Please respond to
                "SERIALST:
                Serials in
                 Libraries
             Discussion Forum"
             <SERIALST@LIST.UV
                  M.EDU>

When we find errors and report them to Serials Solutions they are
cooperative -- enthusiastic, even, about getting it right. On the other
hand, if the data comes from an aggregator like Proquest which does just
what you reported -- lump all holdings under the current title and not even
cross ref from the old title -- it will just keep coming in wrong over and
over again. Getting the aggregators to change is a different story
altogether. I've had no luck with that.

Good luck,
Judith Stokes

Judith E. Stokes
Serials/E-resources Librarian
Rhode Island College
600 Mount Pleasant Avenue
Providence, RI 02908-1991
401.456.8165

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Cahill, Helen
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2008 8:08 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

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