1. Nailing Ectoplasm to the Wall: Serials Control & E-journals Electronic journals add (or is it take away?) a whole new dimension to the librarian's life Martha Gunnarson Serials Librarian, WPI 2 nd International Fire Information Conference, May 2002

2. In this presentation, I will take a look at some of the issues involved in setting up (and maintaining) access to e-journals

3. Serials control has been described as being like "nailing jell-o to the wall" A messy, frustrating process It can be done, but it won’t ever be perfect

4. Ectoplasm I used to think of ectoplasm as wispy and insubstantial. 1

5. Ectoplasm But it’s not so different from jell-o after all. 2

6. What’s available? How do you find them? Your serials vendor Publisher’s catalogs New Journal listserv Web searches Print journals

7. How much money? Sometimes a great deal, sometimes none at all Usually somewhere in the middle

8. We can’t afford that! Free trial periods Many government publications freely available Online access often bundled with print Some back files available for free

9. Consortial agreements help keep costs in line More libraries = more purchasing power Educational institutions may have the edge over corporate libraries WPI belongs to: NERL NELINET Pi 2

10. Take advantage of your local region/state/nation’s programs Privately funded libraries are sometimes able to participate in government sponsored programs

11. Initiatives to make research results freely accessible SPARC Budapest initiative Preprint servers HighWire Press

12. Freebies – some good ones NewJour HighWire Press SPARC Electronic Library of Mathematics

13. Access to a publisher’s entire catalog – cost effective? ScienceDirect (Elsevier) IDEAL (Academic Press, now Elsevier) Wiley InterScience Blackwell Publishers Oxford University Press Many others

14. Some nasty surprises can come with those package deals: A journal switches publishers, and your access disappears Publisher bought out by another publisher, who immediately changes the rules

15. Is pay-per-view a better option? For a small library, or a well-funded library it may well be Difficult to predict how heavy the use will be

16. Restrictions easing Licenses conforming to standards Permission to use for InterLibrary Loan Prices coming down (somewhat)

17. Is the light at the end of the tunnel an oncoming train? Publishers deciding they’ve been too generous Prices going up We’re hooked, now what?

18. Read agreements carefully You thought your access was going to be permanent back to 1997, but the publisher’s offer was for access to the current 5 years. Oops!

19. Dealing with license agreements Do you need a lawyer? Just grit your teeth, sign, and hope for the best?

20. Interlibrary loan issues In many cases, you are only allowed to lend a printed copy Some agreements allow sending an electronic copy Are you planning to union list? Consider the impact on ILL

21. Where are they exactly? Publisher’s web site? Aggregators -- EBSCO Online, OCLC, Ingenta, Catchword... All of the above

22. What does “full text” mean, anyway?.pdf files becoming the standard for scholarly works Graphs, diagrams, advertisements and illustrations -- are they included? Is the text scanned as an image? If not, how bad are the typos? Aggregators may have proprietary formats

23. Do you need a site license? Simultaneous users -- how many? IP addresses -- class C vs. class B subnets The joy of proxy servers

24. Troubleshooting the connections This URL worked last week... Is the server down? Is your network down? Using link checking software Patrons are your friends

25. Usernames and passwords Keep good records Choices should be easy to remember Difference between administrator and user Use your intranet to distribute to patrons Linked from catalog record

26. Troubleshooting the patrons What platform (Windows, Mac, Unix... ) What software (Netscape, Internet Explorer) and what version? Is the Adobe Acrobat Reader® or other specialized software installed? Where are they located? Did they use the proxy server? Do they know the password? Did the password change?

27. Advertising availability e-mail contents alerting services posters 2x4’s web pages

28. Making the journals available to patrons – Grow your own … Printed lists Library catalog -- are hot links supported? How specific will you be about holdings? Lists on your intranet -- link directly to the journal, or to a catalog entry? Subject lists

29. Making the journals available to patrons -- Commercial services Can help keep up with changes in coverage, titles added/dropped from databases Serials Solutions TDNet 1Cate = One Click Access to Everything JournalWebcite

30. WPI’s Cataloging Workflow Search Voyager database for existing bib record or import new record from OCLC Add or edit 856 field Add 440 field if applicable Add holdings information and 856 to MFHD (MARC Format for Holdings Display) Add holdings information to OCLC Union List Update Serials Solutions library profile

31. What about checking in issues? Do your patrons care? Do you? Contents alerting services

32. Print plus online, or online only? How much shelf space (and money) do you have? Jumping off the cliff -- without a parachute Nothing to bind or shelve Do you worry about the earth’s magnetic poles shifting? Determine your library’s comfort level

33. In Paper We Trust Will we have perpetual access to the content we’re paying for today? Services like JSTOR, OCLC ECO -- dedicated to preservation over the long haul Scholarly societies -- probably a good bet. For Profit Publishers -- maybe, but don’t hold your breath Alternatives: print out and save locally, archive digital files locally, publisher-provided CD-ROMs

34. Living with the worst case scenario You cancelled the print, and now you’ve lost online access InterLibrary Loan Document delivery

35. Back runs of print Your access is secure, and it goes back to Volume 1, no. 1. Now what do you do about those back runs of the print?

36. Back runs of print Keep them on the shelves? How much use are they getting now, and how much did they get before you had the electronic version? Do you have agreements with other libraries? (Have you committed to retaining them for inFIRE, for example?)

37. Back runs of print Store them remotely? Sell them? Give them away? Don’t forget to offer them to other inFIRE libraries first Recycle them?

38. Statistics - the good, the bad, and the really ugly Is anyone using the e-journals? Comparing apples to... watermelons? Counting hits using re-directs not as reliable as publishers statistics What is a “use” ?

39. Standards for Statistics International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) Guidelines for statistical measures of usage of web- based information resources. http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/2001webstats.htm Elsevier

40. Stupid publisher tricks You paid the invoice but you can’t get access Electronic commerce moves slower than snail mail Ignore e-mail at your peril Making you sign a new agreement every year Access automatically shuts off every January Redesigned web sites -- all links change

41. More aggravation Poor website design Copyright and court battles Title changes a lot less obvious without the print copy 3

42. After a full day of dealing with electronic journals you may feel like this: 4

43. 5 Totally irrelevant, but too good to not share!