I do take your comments positively and I agree that testing shouldn't be
dumped on users. As some of you on this list will be aware, MCB is working
on a major relaunch of our Emerald products. We have done many weeks of
in-house testing before releasing a test version to a large number of our
librarian customers. We haven't done this to pass on the responsibility for
testing to users but to get some helpful feedback.
The problem of testing when it is your content hosted on somebody else's
service is more difficult. MCB has 7 years of full text articles from
approximately 130 journals (about 30,000 articles) which are then hosted on
11 different gateways (agents, aggregators, hubs, etc.) Testing to see
whether our content is correctly presented on all of these is an enormous
task so we have to do spot checks rather than checking everything:
consequently some errors do get through. Some potential errors are also
really difficult to test for and so we have to rely on user feedback.
I would also like to thank everyone who responded to me off this list about
missing MCB issues on ingenta. We will correct these problems as soon as we
can and try to identify the underlying causes.
Paul Evans
Head of Marketing Development, MCB University Press,
60/62 Toller Lane, Bradford BD8 9BY
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
tel: 01274 777 700 fax: 01274 785 171
-----Original Message-----
From: ssm [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday 31 January 2001 11:03 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: FW: Gaps in ingentaJournals coverage
I sent this yesterday but not sure of it got through - apologies if you
receive twice.
Well I've spent (wasted?) many happy (frustrated?) hours trying to get to
the bottom of such problems! This is one of the reasons that we have now set
up links to two service providers for many of our ejournals as often one
will work when the other won't.
See http://www.inf.aber.ac.uk/academicliaison/ejournals.asp
With Ingenta particularly we have found (only by accident of course as there
is no possibility of anyone here having time to check them all!) many
differences between what we think we should have access to and what actually
works. Then there are a variety of reasons for the discrepancy - maybe
subscription details not getting through, or maybe publisher has not sent
content files to Ingenta to be loaded. On the latter, when I have queried
this, I have been told to contact the publisher myself. On both counts, you
need to be persistent to get the situation sorted out. Ingenta can supply
you with a list of your subscriptions that they have been informed about.
This list may say Journal of..... 1998, 1999, 2000 but year 2000 may not yet
have been loaded onto Ingenta.
I'd also like to add a reply to MCB's comment (and reinforce Lesley's plea)
and I hope my comment will be taken positively. The request from MCB for us
to let them know of missing content is typical of the problems we are
experiencing. Of course, we will report problems when possible, but it seems
to be the modern way that products and services are provided but the testing
of them is left to the users.
Sandra Morris
Electronic Information Development Officer
Hugh Owen Library
Information Services,
University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Penglais Campus,
Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, SY23 3DZ
Email: [log in to unmask]
Extension: 1892 Phone: (01970) 621892 FAX: (01970) 622404
-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list, set up under the auspices of the United
Kingdom Seri [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Ian
Winship
Sent: 30 January 2001 11:33
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Gaps in ingentaJournals coverage
We are finding many gaps in coverage of the titles we access through
ingentaJournals where complete issues or sometimes just certain articles are
not available. This is very frustrating for our users, especially as in many
cases, for example MCB and Academic Press, we can subsequently find these
issues and articles on the publisher's site.
What is the reason?
[I am posting to the list, rather than asking ingenta direct, as I assume
other list members will be interested in any response and will be happy to
help if ingenta need to apply pressure on their suppliers.]
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Ian Winship
Learning Resources, University of Northumbria at Newcastle
City Campus Library, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK
----------------
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
phone: 0191 227 4150 fax: 0191 227 4563
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