I would definitely love something like this!!  Although, the "dispatch"
dates entered on EBSCO's site would have to be more exact.  There have been
times when I've received an issue well before the date EBSCO lists as the
"dispatch" date...

So I tend to take that information with a grain of salt, and therefore, tend
to claim items that I think I should have received, regardless of the given
dispatch date.  I'm especially wary with titles that have policies like:
"claims must be made within 3 months"

The only time I hold off claiming an issue is if the EBSCO site has a note
on the title saying that publication has been delayed, and the date attached
to the note is relatively recent.

Take care,
Cyndi

>From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of BLACK, STEVE
>Sent: Monday, November 01, 2010 2:24 PM
>To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
>Subject: [SERIALST] I wish subscription agents would develop an
acquisitions program
>
>Here's why.
>
>We're a Voyager library, and the last upgrade spurred me to abandon MFHD
853/863. We put our holdings info back into MFHD 866 and set "recent issues"
to not display in the OPAC. Now that holdings are in the textual 866 field,
in theory our check-in and claims could be separate from the ILS, since no
info from the acquisitions module is displayed to patrons.
>
>We have toyed with going to an open source ILS like Koha. My understanding
is that Koha doesn't have an acquisitions module (yet). Perhaps subscription
agents could build on what they already do and develop a workable
acquisitions program for their customers.
>
>EBSCO happens to be our subscription agent. The idea I've shared with my
sales rep is they should develop an extension of EBSCOnet for check-in that
"talks" with orders, claiming, and especially their data on when publishers
have dispatched issues (kept within "volume/issue information"). Such a
system would be able to distinguish delays in publication from missed
issues, so a claim would not be generated until it is known the issue has
been published. Eliminating system-generated claims for issues not yet
published would save both libraries and EBSCO work processing claims. A
separate report could alert libraries to delays in publication.
>
>The main idea is to integrate check-in with the agents' order and claim
data, rather than having that process reside separately in the ILS.
>
>Steve Black
>Serials & Reference Librarian
>Neil Hellman Library
>The College of Saint Rose
>432 Western Ave.
>Albany, NY 12203
>(518) 458-5494
>blacks@strose.edu
>
>