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Electronic Journals – National Licensing and Local Impact: Getting Ready for CNSLP at the University of Saskatchewan

David Fox

Head, Information Technology Services

University of Saskatchewan Libraries

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg2

Starting point:

1 e-journal subscription prior to CNSLP - JBC

5 CNSLP e-journal services already owned by ½ to 2/3 of participants

Other participants: – CNSLP represented an opportunity to divert funds to other expenditures– had already incorporated CNSLP titles into their finding tools

UofS:– CNSLP was an opportunity to catch up– needed to develop systems and procedures for importing large numbers of

titles ASAP

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg3

Starting point, continued:

E-journal db with ~ 2000 free e-journals

The Catalogue ~ with a few 856 links to e-journals

Journal of Biological Chemistry online

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg4

GRCNSLP Committee – October 2000

Immediate Goal

add CNSLP content to the Catalogue ASAP

(expected to have to find or create our own MARC records)

Larger Goal

build a system to import and manage other full text E-journal AND article aggregator services

single place to look

one time data entry

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg5

Issues and assumptions

Assumptions some sort of automated process – batch retrieval and load

needed a way to manipulate and customize records for local use

Question Should we continue to maintain the E-journal database?

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg6

EJDB vs. The Catalogue

Catalogue is the “official” Library database, contains print holdings

EJDB includes many more e-journal titles

EJDB expected to be the vehicle for generating catalogue records

EJDB includes records for titles in “article aggregator” services– concern about quality, accuracy– reluctance by some members to include these records in Catalogue

Decision: Continue to maintain both for the time being

Catalogue and EJDB have become increasingly interdependent

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg7

Options for obtaining MARC

JAKE?

local development?

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg8

JAKE: (Jointly Administered Knowledge Environment)

an open source database of E-journal data, along with software tools for searching and manipulating this data

originated at Yale, replicated at SFU, Openly Jake

intended to be a universal source of e-journal metadata to support acquisitions, cataloguing and search applications

includes lists of publications from over 194 different databases

includes basic information for each publication: title, ISSN, sources, jakeID

utility written by Mark Jordan for generating skeletal MARC records

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg9

MARC Output from JAKE

000 00334nms 22001217a 4500005 20010530193329.0022 $a0002-8762050 00 $aE171.A57082 00 $a973.05245 00 $aAmerican Historical Review$h[computer file]590 ## $aDerived from jake, http://jake.med.yale.edu/ using jakeid 9612.650 #0 $aHistory650 #0 $aUnited States -- History

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg10

Problems with JAKE

database lists incomplete, out of date

Canadian sources not included (CBCA databases)

MARC records too skimpy

skeptical that shortcomings would be overcome in time for us to use it.

a clever idea – but too ambitious?

60-70% accuracy not good enough

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg11

UofS EJDB vs JAKE: Full Text Coverage of CNSLP Products

Vendor UofS EJDB JAKE (Yale) JAKE (SFU) Openly JAKE

Springer 398 261 261 261

IDEAL 204 (Academic Press only)

243 219 243

ACS 31 0 0 0

IOP 38 0 0 0

RSC 23 0 0 0

May 30, 2001

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg12

UofS EJDB vs JAKE: Full Text Coverage of non-CNSLP Products

Vendor UofS EJDB JAKE (Yale) JAKE (SFU) Openly JAKE

JSTOR 213 110 110 110

Project Muse

164 103 106 103

CBCA FT Business

81 0 0 0

CBCA FT Education

190 0 0 0

CBCA FT Reference

140 0 0 0

May 30, 2001

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg13

Local Development

D atabase

A ccess (for)

R ecord

R etrieval (in)

Y our

L ibrary

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg15

E-journal management system: user functions

E-Journals database

Browse and display by title, publisher, vendor, database, subject

Quick Search (exact title)

Advanced Search (title and subject keyword; boolean, phrase search)

Recent additions (last 30 days)

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg17

E-journal management system: admin functions

Data retrieval functions

scripts for harvesting e-journal data from vendor sites

scripts for harvesting MARC records from LC, AMICUS

E-Journals admin interface

add/edit/delete: titles, vendors, publishers

Reports:

– Titles Missing Publisher– Pending/Incomplete Titles– URL Validation Report– Database Information

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg18

Process: Initial Load

harvest data from vendor’s list

– capture title, ISSN, coverage information

search for MARC records in LC, AMICUS via Z39.50

load MARC data into EJDB

review and edit MARC data. Add 916 tags

load revised MARC records into Catalogue

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg22

MARC Tag 916

916 $aEJDB$bAcademic Press$cIDEAL

$a = Electronic Journals database

$b = Vendor

$c = Database

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg24

Integrating the EJDB and the Catalogue

reciprocal links between records based on ISSN

source and coverage information maintained in the EJDB

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg29

Loading and Maintenance Issues

multiple records for different formats facilitates batch loading, removal

tag 916 facilitates merging of duplicates

periodic updates will be required

how to retain changes to catalogue records?

Catalogue bib number stored in the EJDB record facilitates overlay

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg31

Outcomes

loaded 700 catalogue records for CNSLP e-journals on March 30

developed a robust system for retrieving and batch loading e-journal record sets into the Catalogue and the EJDB

developed a process for making decisions and solving problems relating to managing access to electronic journals

library staff from diverse backgrounds shared expertise to solve technical problems

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg32

Next steps

loading records for article aggregator services into the Catalogue?

integrated maintenance of catalogue and EJDB

direct access to articles using Open URL standard

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg33

Conclusions: local impact

Drexel Study: Framework for assessing the impact of an electronic journal collection on library costs and staffing patterns

Carol Montgomery, JoAnne Sparks, 2000.

lower unit costs for content but higher staff and infrastructure costs

savings in circulation, shelving, print reserve, document delivery more than offset by increased costs for systems, license administration, cataloguing, information services

significant retraining of staff and “re-engineering” of technical processes

“We plan to stay the course – to aggressively continue with our transition to electronic journals”

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg34

Where are we now?

We have implemented a large number of e-journals in a short space of time

What is required now is to make adjustments to staffing and procedures to improve efficiency

We can’t go back!

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg35

E-journal management system: technical details

e-journals database runs on MS SQL Server 7.0 and NT 4.0

web server is Apache 1.3.19 on Digital Unix 4.0F, using a combination of Perl and PHP 4 to provide the web interface.

FreeTDS (www.freetds.org) supplies the interface between the Unix machine and the SQL server

Sybase and MS SQL Server use the TDS protocol to communicate with client applications

MARC records from LC and AMICUS are harvested, via Z39.50 using a combination of Perl and the Yaz Z39.50 toolkit utilities

June 15, 2001 CLA Annual Conference,

Winnipeg37

The next generation…