Adding virtual serial holdings to local OPACS Martha Gunnarson 31 Oct 1994 16:13 UTC
----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Forwarded with permission from the author. Date: Sat, 29 Oct 1994 13:49:40 -0230 Sender: "AUTOCAT: Library cataloging and authorities discussion group" <AUTOCAT@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU> From: Charley Pennell <cpennell@morgan.ucs.mun.ca> Subject: Adding virtual serial holdings to local OPACs As is the case at many academic libraries these days, Memorial University of Newfoundland has had to cancel numerous journal subscriptions over the past few years just to keep the materials budget fairly constant or, at best, in line with inflation. A simple methodology was used to determine the cost-per-use for a number of serials thought to be costing us more than their use could support. This was described in a couple of articles by Dorothy Milne and William Tiffany which appeared in _Serials review_ about three years ago. As you can probably predict, given the current rate of serial price increases, this method will eventually reach a point where uneconomic journals have all been cancelled and some new criteria must be used to realize the savings needed to balance the budget. We reached that point this year and began looking at a new model where cancellations will be made based on the availability of virtual resources from sources like Uncover, Article First, and the Canadian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI). To placate those patrons who use these materials, we have agreed on a very fast document-delivery turnaround for the 300 journals being cancelled this year, and are considering making note of this in our OPAC records. One of the things we have considered is the possibility of adding virtual holdings to our OPAC, at least for the 300 titles we are cancelling this year. This could take the form of a note directing patrons to ILL for further issues, or it could take the form of a holdings record pointing to the external source of a title. Politically, we are most interested in providing access to cancelled issues no longer subscribed to, but our faculty and students can already order Uncover articles directly through our Gopher, and might want to know of other holdings there. We are already connecting tables of contents from _Current Contents_ to local (and regional) holdings, so why not connect this and other reference databases up to holdings at one of the commercial article services? Have other libraries begun listing virtual resources in their OPACS, and if so what is your model? Are you treating the remote source as another location? Are you relying on Z39.50 or local gateways to identify outside holdings through remote catalogues and if so how do patrons then get the articles? I know some of the commercial ILS have the ability to generate requests for monographs found in searches at remote sites, but how about for individual articles? Have any of the commercial article providers begun offering Z39.50 access to surrogate records of their holdings or to tapes (Format for holdings and locations, possibly) which could be mounted locally? This latter would seem a natural for Articles First with their proximity to the "World Catalog" or whatever euphemism they are applying to the OCLC OLUC these days. Has anyone used reference databases mounted (or accessed) locally to point to holdings at Uncover or one of the other article services? +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Charley Pennell cpennell@morgan.ucs.mun.ca Head, Cataloguing Division phone: (709)737-7625 Queen Elizabeth II Library fax: (709)737-3118 Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John's, Nfld. A1B 3Y1 CANADA +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+