Re: Popular magazines going digital advice (Beth Johns) Bob Persing 22 Jul 2009 13:11 UTC
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Popular magazines going digital advice From: Beth Johns (bmjohns@vmail.svsu.edu) Date: 7/22/09 8:59 AM Hi Cynthia-- I handle electronic access of our e-journals at Saginaw Valley State University--I guess the e-journal world is starting to creep into public libraries too! I can't speak as a public librarian and I don't know the organizational structure of your library, but I can tell you that if it is a very large number of titles you are talking about, you want to see if IP authentication is available rather than U/P authentication. How large is large is pretty much up to your library. From a staff point of view, keeping track of usernames & passwords can be a really big pain and generally, publishers do not want that information to be available publicly (i.e., posting it somewhere publicly, like on the computer workstations). Unfortunately, it has been my experience that many magazine publishers only allow U/P authentication, unlike most academic journal publishers, so you might be stuck with U/P authentication, at least for awhile. As to whether you drop a title, I would think you'd need to take a good look at your usage statistics for the print format, even if it's not a terribly formal analysis. Maybe check circulation if you allow magazines to be checked out? Beth ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cynthia Dieden" <cdieden@MPPL.ORG> To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 5:49:43 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [SERIALST] Popular magazines going digital advice Hello- I work at a public library and with the economic downturn, we've been noticing a lot of magazines (general interest, parenting, crafts etc - the kind public libraries often have) are starting to offer their magazine in digital format only. At one time, the digital only titles tended to be scholarly or highly niche oriented, but now PC Magazine, Disney's Family Fun and others are going that route so we are facing this issue Usually, the publishers will offer one log in per subscription so we are left with some concerns. Do we keep receiving it, do we offer access and, if so, how do we offer access? I'm wondering how other libraries are handling this or have handled it. No longer offering the magazine? Setting up accounts for popular magazines and having staff interation for passwords and user names? Setting up a special station? Any thoughts, advice, ideas or innovations are welcome. Thanks! Cynthia Dieden Collection Specialist Librarian/Periodicals Supervisor Mount Prospect Public Library cdieden@mppl.org <mailto:cdieden@mppl.org> Opinions expressed are those of the sender and not of Mount Prospect Public Library -- Beth M. Johns, MLIS Electronic Resources & Reference Librarian Zahnow Library Saginaw Valley State University 1-989-964-2158 bmjohns@svsu.edu