Paul Stainthorp Schrödinger's cataloguer

I predicted, when we were discussing our project to re-populate the e-journals A-to-Z/our link resolver knowledgebase, that we’d be able to get the site back to >80% of its former contents, measured by the number of unique titles listed, within a couple of hours of starting the job.

We managed that OK: the A-to-Z now contains 71,821 unique titles, which is just over four-fifths of the previous high-water mark of 88,000+ titles. N.B. this is no guarantee of quality… the missing 20% certainly contains some important e-journals which still need to be located and added.

We managed this by concentrating on the ‘easy’, Big Deal database packages (the EBSCOhosts, ProQuests, Emeralds, and ScienceDirects), which can be added to the A-to-Z in a couple of clicks – if (and it’s a big if) we have accurate information about the nature of the database subscription to start with. Finding a reliable source for information about our e-resource subscriptions is going to be one of the trickiest bits of this exercise. We carry around a lot of accumulated knowledge in our heads, but we don’t know where we got it from, or how to check it’s still correct!

More importantly, this time we’re writing clear processes as we go, and keeping details of all our packages/databases in a new ERM (E-resources Management) spreadsheet, available to all Acquisitions and E-resources staff on Google Docs.

Here’s the thing –  my hunch is that the missing 20% of unique titles will take significantly longer than a couple of hours to find accurate information for (it can’t be expressed as a single-click Big Deal option, for instance), and even longer to write meaningful documentation that can be picked up by a new member of Library staff and used to help them get to grips with managing the A-to-Z.

80% of the pain from 20% of the content. But that’s why we’re doing this exercise – to get this stuff out in the open and end up with an A-to-Z/link resolver knowledgebase which is a lot more accurate to start with, and which will stay a lot more accurate over time.

If you’re interested, here are the packages we’ve added back on to the A-to-Z so far today. A live list is at: http://atoz.ebsco.com/Providers/1710

1. Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals (EBSCO Publishing)(A&I)
2. Academic Search Elite
3. ACM Digital Library Core Package
4. AMED (Alternative Medicine)(EBSCO Publishing)(A&I)
5. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson)
6. ASSIA: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (CSA) (A&I)
7. BHI: British Humanities Index (CSA) (A&I)
8. Business Source Complete
9. CINAHL with Full Text
10. Design and Applied Arts Index (CSA) (A&I)
11. Emerald Management 175
12. ERIC (CSA)(A&I)
13. European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750
14. Factiva Academic
15. Food Science Source
16. GreenFILE
17. Humanities International Index (A&I)
18. IEEE/IET Electronic Library (IEL)
19. International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (Proquest)(A&I)
20. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text
21. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA)(A&I)
22. MEDLINE (EBSCO Publishing)(A&I)
23. MLA Directory of Periodicals (EBSCO Publishing) (A&I)
24. MLA International Bibliography (EBSCO Publishing)(A&I)
25. PILOTS Database (A&I)
26. ProQuest ABI/INFORM Complete
27. ProQuest Biology Journals
28. ProQuest British Periodicals
29. PsycINFO (EBSCO Publishing)(A&I)
30. Regional Business News
31. Sage Premier 2010
32. ScienceDirect Freedom Collection (NESLi2)
33. SPORTDiscus with Full Text
34. Teacher Reference Center (A&I)
35. VDE VERLAG Conference Proceedings

N.B. some of the finer points of authentication haven’t been reinstated yet.

Tags: 80-20 rule, A-to-Z, acquisitions, Big Deal, knowledgebase, link resolver, packages, problems, re-populating, subscriptions