Our resource persons: Rich Bennett, Ken Wells, and Elaine Henjum did a fantastic job of answering our questions and the group as a whole carried on a very lively and interesting discussion. Attending were Links Committee members: Naomi Young, Doug Kiker, Denise Bennett, Priscilla Williams, Lawan Orser and Jimmie Lundgren and also Martha Hruska, Julia Allen, Betsy Simpson and Marcia Martin.

Acquiring and loading MARC records from either Serials Solutions or Ex Libris would be very valuable for our patrons by enabling all our journals (print and electronic) to be retrieved through our catalog. This is especially valuable because these products would enable inclusion of catalog records for thousands of titles in the aggregator databases that are not feasible for staff to keep track of otherwise. Also, both products provide regular updates as electronic journals change and evolve as much as they so often do. Serials Solutions even provide a unique option to include an 856 field that links to the most current information in the Serials Solutions hosted database about our subscriptions in between the monthly MARC record updates in the catalog. Statistics are also captured when actually linking to e-journals from the Serials Solutions hosted site.

Denise and Marcia spoke from the public services perspective in stressing that we need to better serve patrons by putting all our journals in one source. Patrons looking for a particular journal would not have to guess between whether to search the ejounals list or the catalog.

Rich reported that we currently have access to 33,927 electronic journals but less than 9,000 are in our catalog, which means we would be adding about 25,000 additional electronic journals to our catalog. Most of those not yet in the catalog are in various aggregator databases.

E-journal MARC records are generated using data already maintained for other purposes. MARCit records would be included based on data tagged in the SFX KnowledgeBase for use with SFX (and soon with MetaLib). Serials Solutions records would be based on data in our Serials Solutions database (now used to provide the E-Journal Locator).

While we have in the past strongly favored using the single record method to record access to electronic versions of journals we hold in print, recent discussions among public services and the Continuing Resources groups have indicated a general acceptance of using separate records for electronic versions. This is especially so if all the thousands of E-Journals now unavailable there could be included; displaying the actual E-Journal years covered in the catalog records would also be a significant improvement over what is now commonly entered for most titles (i.e. "Full text of recent years."). It was also pointed out that there is some precedence for separate records for electronic versions of titles. This is how NetLibrary and Books 24/7 are handled.

Loading these MARC records would result in some manual clean-up of the existing print version records that now include the links; this would apply to both options. The record sets may make updating records easier as well by offering a distinguishable smaller set to work with rather than the entire catalog to search and update.

The ability to change from one option to the other in the future seems open without major disadvantages. Loading these as a set and changing our policy to provide separate records for the electronic journals would facilitate a future change from one vendor service to another.

Issues regarding actual loading for the record sets seem to pertain more to our loaders than any distinctions between the two options.

Both sets can be loaded into the catalog. While we know that a decision to use Ex Libris MARCit! records would enable the E-Journal entries within MetaLib to include a link to enhanced journal information there if desired, further investigation needs to occur concerning the potential for using Serials Solutions data in MetaLib. Boston College is the only place we've heard about so far that uses Serials Solutions data for its MetaLib ejournals list, and Rich suspects that the MARC records Serials Solutions provides would not be able to be used in MetaLib in the same way MARCit records are used there to provide a link to enhanced information about the E-Journal.

The quality of the data from Serials Solutions generally appears to be better. Naomi pointed out that Serials Solutions uses electronic journal records while MARCit uses the print version records consistently. Rich mentioned that Serials Solutions updates data from all publishers and aggregators each month; SFX staff does not yet contact each vendor for updated data each month.

MARCit from Ex Libris may (or may not) offer greater compatibility with other existing or future Ex Libris products. We know that the single SFX Knowledgebase is designed to be used for SFX, MetaLib, and Aleph MARC record services; a license tracking service (Verde) now in development would also be integrated with these existing Ex Libris products (if we choose to purchase that supplemental product). While this long-term compatibility is something to consider in the choice of MARC record vendors, it is not clear that the Serials Solutions records would not be able to be compatible also. If it turns out there is not compatibility with Serials Solutions we will need to carefully evaluate the desirability of continuing to maintain both the SFX and Serials Solutions databases for the long-term.

Elaine shared some cost figures for a consortial purchase and a quote for a single customer that had been given to another library. FCLA is not supplying money for this purchase but would coordinate the purchase if libraries want it and will fund it.

The group is very enthusiastic about the idea of acquiring electronic serial MARC record sets. The basic advantages apply to both products. As noted above, those who have worked with Serials Solutions have great things to say about the quality of their records, the timeliness, and the ease of working with their products, etc.

Prepared by:  Jimmie Lundgren, October 6, 2004