Wednesday, October 22, 2008

E-resources and Serials Access Update

E-resources and Serials Access Update

The ERSA team in the Cataloging and Metadata Services Department assists with the management of the Libraries electronic resources. The tools we use to manage these resources include the knowledgebase we have set up in SerialsSolutions (SS) and the Libraries’ integrated library system (ILS) which includes an ERMS (Electronic Resource Management System). The Libraries initiated the use of SS in order to develop a knowledgebase of our e-journal holdings so we could provide our patrons with better access to our e-journals (E-journal Finder, A-Z list). This knowledgebase is a list of databases we have access to together with the titles/holdings for each database. We also use SS MARC records for our e-journals and all of the journal titles available to us through the many databases we have purchased are represented in Chinook. Information is transferred from the knowledgebase to our ERMS via the coverage and catalog update process. This process populates the links and holdings information you see in the e-journal records in Chinook. It also informs our link resolver, WebBridge (Find it at CU). We are now also doing this coverage load process for other resources including e-book and map packages. The coverage load process associates the individual titles within a package to the resource record for that package. It also displays the linking URL from a holdings record rather than from the bibliographic records’ 856 fields (the 856s in these records have been moved to 956s in order to prevent a display of duplicate links to the public).

Successful management of e-journals, e-books, and other online resources depends upon effective communication between CMS, Collection Development, Acquisitions and our colleagues in Public Services. Please let us know of any suggestions or concerns you may have.

The ERSA Team