When we first started working with the eSerials Holdings service, I was rather appalled at the match rate (our experience is comparable to Buddy & Birdie...I'd have to look at the latest report, but I'm guessing just under 50%).  Because we have profiled several large foreign language collections (East Asian and Slavic), I'm not a bit surprised that we have as low a match rate as we do....as Birdie points out, we're currently just get brief records for most of these anyway as there is no record in OCLC for most of those titles.  Occasionally, I'll see an English-language title that I'm quite surprised doesn't match.

About two years ago, I had mentioned to Paul Moss at OCLC that we had some staff (at that time) that could troubleshoot some of the non-matching, but he was clear that they were not willing to process reports from us on a title-by-title basis as the matching is an automated process (as Buddy points out, the scope is such that it really can't be done manually).  I still thought there might be a way to at least get ISSN into some records to help with matching, but the conversation with Paul never progressed to the point of working out specifics.  --Steve

Steve Shadle/Serials Access Librarian         shadle@u.washington.edu
NASIG President
University of Washington Libraries              Phone: (206) 685-3983
Seattle, WA 98195-2900                            Fax: (206) 543-0854

On Thu, 17 Nov 2011, Birdie MacLennan wrote:

> We use the eSerials Holdings service with records from our EBSCO knowledgebase.  The OCLC reports are indicating about a 37% match rate (19500+ matches for over 52000 items; 30900+ unresolved). 50% sounds
> better, but still leaves lots to be desired.  Part of the problem, in looking at our title list, appears to be brief records supplied (esp. re. Lexis-Nexis "hldgs"), where there are really no points to match on.
>
> We have complained about the quality of the records. That hasn't boosted the match rate.
> We feel that the 37% match is better than none (or relatively few) before we set up this service.
> There's certainly no way to do it manually.
> We are happy to have some of our eholdings reflected in OCLC.
> It's another place for our users to discover / access resource(s) that we provide.
>
> On the other hand, it does seem that there should be a way for this service to achieve better results.
>
> I'm also curious to know if anyone using any other MARC/KB service (Serials Solutions, EBSCO, SFX/MARCit) - with the eSerials holdings service is keeping track of the match rate and what you've found.
>
>  - Birdie
>
> On 11/17/2011 2:47 PM, Pennington, Buddy D. wrote:
>
>       We don’t do anything. My take on this is that the valuable “core” academic journals tend to fall into the resolved category and the bulk of the stuff in the unresolved category are serials that we
>       don’t care all that much about. So why spend the time trying to get them into WorldCat? We have lots of other things to worry about.
>
>        
>
>       I could be very wrong about this! To be honest, we haven’t looked at it that closely. Our attitude is that prior to Serials Solutions MARC records, less than 10% of our online serials were in the
>       online catalog, let alone WorldCat. Now we have nearly 100% in our local catalog and roughly half in WorldCat with vastly reduced cataloging staff time involved. So we are taking the glass half full
>       approach.
>
>        
>
>       Buddy Pennington
>
>       Director of Collections and Access Management
>
>       University of Missouri - Kansas City
>
>       304 Miller Nichols Library
>
>       800 East 51st Street
>
>       Kansas City, MO  64110
>
>       816-235-1548
>
>       816-333-5584 (fax)
>
>        
>
>       UMKC Libraries: Discovery. Knowledge. Empowerment.
>
>  
>
> From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Janet Lee-Smeltzer
> Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 1:04 PM
> To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
> Subject: [SERIALST] OCLC eSerials Holdings
>
>  
>
> Apologies for cross-posting.
>
>  
>
> We load records from Serials Solutions for our electronic journals and update holdings in WorldCat using the eSerials Holdings service offered by OCLC.  I have recently gotten confirmation from OCLC
> support that a 50% match rate is the best we can expect (for a library of our size).  The November eSerials Holdings Service Summary Report  indicates that out of 47,239 of records processed, 24,025 were
> unresolved, i.e., no WorldCat records were matched for these titles to set our holdings.   I am interested in hearing from those, who use the same two services, if you are experiencing the same low
> matching rate and how you handle the unresolved records.  Manually review the unresolved records and update holdings?  Not worry about it and do nothing?
>
>  
>
> Thank you.
>
>  
>
>  
>
> Janet Lee-Smeltzer
> Head, Cataloging and Metadata Services
> The University of Alabama Libraries
> Box 870266
> Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0266
> Phone: 205-348-6022
> Fax: 205-348-6358
> janet_leesmeltzer@yahoo.com
>
>
>