Re: Serials List database -- Dan Lester Stephen Clark 14 Dec 2001 19:17 UTC
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Serials List database -- Susan Schleicher Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 12:06:34 -0700 From: Dan Lester <dan@riverofdata.com> Reply-To: Dan Lester <dan@riverofdata.com> Organization: RiverOfData.com I'm not sure if I'm answering the right question, but here we go. Friday, December 14, 2001, 10:30:23 AM, you wrote: SC> I hope someone out in Serials Land can help me with this question. Our SC> library is considering the option of NOT printing our serials list in SC> paper any more. Please share with me any successes and/or failures you have SC> encountered using databases to publish your serials list to the web. Boise State has produced a serials list in paper since before 1990 (when I arrived). In recent years it has been produced by extracting appropriate data from our Geac Advance integrated library system and then importing that into MSAccess. Since the most recent update to the Advance system, it has become increasingly difficult to do that extraction. In addition, the printed list has become so thick that we can't bind it with our in-house pinbinding any more. We don't want to have 100 copies each of two volumes. We have done tests of a serials list from the Access database in two ways: First, using the native Access to Web tools that come with Access and FrontPage. Second, by producing it in ColdFusion. Both worked, with the latter preferable to the former. However, that still ieft us with the problem of getting the data extracted from the library catalog. We then investigated the companies that create web-based serials lists, talked with all of them on the phone, and analyzed the costs and benefits of each. For our needs, TDNet was the answer. We expect to have the system our for the public by the beginning of next semester. I'm sure we'll let people know when that happens on both this list and on the new TDNETUSERS list we just started. All that being said, I fully expect some of the reference staff to still lobby for a printed list. That, of course, just isn't going to happen. Our public computers allow the user to open multiple browser sessions (we just started permitting that, because of TDNet), so you'll be able to search a database in one window and then check ownership and holdings in another. For ejournals the holdings information is displayed by TDNet; for print and microform, a link to the relevant catalog record is provided, so the latest receiving information is available, as well as full holdings information. I'm sure some will complain that the poor patron who uses a print index won't be able to check holdings. Well, he'll just have to take the index volumes to a computer, or take notes and check later. Since no indexes are more than about 100 feet from a computer, and since print indexes probably receive less than two percent of the total index usage, I'm just not going to worry about that. There are always some who complain about any change, and there's nothing I can do about that. Since our last printed list is almost two years old, most will be happy to have an up to date resource. I'm always happy to answer questions, either on or off list. Happy holidays, dan -- Dan Lester, Data Wrangler dan@RiverOfData.com 208-283-7711 3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho 83716-7115 USA www.riverofdata.com www.gailndan.com Stop Global Whining!