Assessment of full‐text sources used by serials management systems, OpenURL link resolvers, and imported e‐journal MARC records
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520410570553 |
| Pages | 428-434 |
| Published date | 01 December 2004 |
| Date | 01 December 2004 |
| Author | Xiaotian Chen |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Assessment of full-text
sources used by serials
management systems,
OpenURL link resolvers,
and imported e-journal
MARC records
Xiaotian Chen
The author
Xiaotian Chen is Electronic Services Librarian, Bradley
University, Peoria, Illinois, USA.
Keywords
Text retrieval, Serials management, Software tools,
Electronic journals
Abstract
This article discusses full-text source lists usedby full-text finding
tools, such as serials management systems, OpenURL link
resolvers, and imported e-journal MARC records. Although the
vendors of full-text finding tools claim that they frequently
update their full-text source lists with changes in full-text titles,
ISSNs, coverage dates, and other information, they actually rely
on content providers to offer title lists and coverage information.
Not all content providers offer accurate and updated full-text
source lists in terms of full-text titles included, coverage dates
and embargo periods, and formats and file types. As a result,
librarians and users using serials management systems,
OpenURL link resolvers, or OPACs for finding full-text periodicals
are sometimes taken to dead ends. Vendors of both full-text
finding tools and full-text content need to improve the accuracy
and currency of their services.
Electronic access
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is
available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
Introduction
Librarians and library users are increasingly
dependent on full-text finding tools, such as serials
management systems (e.g. Serials Solutions and
TDNet), OpenURL link resolvers (e.g. SFX by Ex
Libris), and imported e-journal MARC records
(e.g. full MARC records by Serials Solutions), to
find full-text periodical articles. However, the
reliability of full-text title lists provided by full-text
content providers for full-text finding tools
vendors (vendors of serials management systems,
OpenURL link resolvers, and e-journal MARC
records) is an issue. For the sake of simplicity, this
article will use “full-text finding tool vendors” for
vendors of serials management systems,
OpenURL link resolvers, and imported e-journal
MARC records. Similarly, “content providers”
will be used to denote the full-text database
vendors such as EBSCO, Factiva, FirstSearch,
Gale, LexisNexis, ProQuest, and Wilson.
Although full-text finding tool vendors typically
promise bimonthly, monthly, or more frequent
updates, they normally depend on content
providers to give them the lists or to post the lists
on their web sites (Oder, 2001). This article will
address the following:
.outdated data provided by content providers
(some contents providers do not keep up-to-
date data, and the data could up to two years
old);
.wrong data (wrong coverage dates or indexed-
only titles are mistakenly considered as full-
text titles);
.no embargo information or incomplete
embargo information; and
.no format or file-type information (text, PDF,
text plus graphics, etc.), so that users will not
know whether graphics and tables are missing.
Just because full-text finding tool vendors update
their products regularly does not mean that the
lists are actually up-to-date, because full-text
finding tool vendors get updates from content
providers who have various updating schedules
and practices, and thus are of varying quality. This
has a significant impact on the quality of serials
management systems, OpenURL link resolvers,
and imported e-journal MARC records.
Librarians should be aware of this and call for
improvement.
Online Information Review
Volume 28 · Number 6 · 2004 · pp.428-434
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited · ISSN 1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/14684520410570553
Revised article received 28 August 2004
Accepted for publication 1 September 2004
The author is grateful to Elizabeth Lowe of Southern
Illinois University-Edwardsville for editing this paper.
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