Hi Lesley

I have only just got round to reading your message and am now very glad that
I did!

Thankyou for proving to me that it's not just me being driven to distraction
by Ingenta.com/Select!

Another thing that I noticed is that some of our Ingenta (can't remember
whether it was .com or select) access, I think it was to Blackwell titles
so, as you say as part of a deal, seemed to disappear for direct title links
through Ingenta/Catchword but was ok when the link went to Ingenta/Catchword
via Swetswise!

I must admit that I've thrown in the towel for now and am only responding to
specific problems that our users have identified!  I'll have a proper look
at it all next week...

Best wishes

Claire


-----Original Message-----
From: Lesley Crawshaw [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 21 November 2002 11:02
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: The Latest Chaper of the Continuing Integration of ingenta.com and
Ingenta Select - How Was It For You?


Hi,

I don't think I am the only one slightly confused/frustrated during the
continuing merger of ingenta.com and Ingenta Select (Catchword) and trying
with the help of others to maintain our access to everything our institution
should have a right to access. Which site should we link to for new
subscriptions?  Although all existing links will continue to work, should we
decide from now on to link to one but not the other? We can't see the point
of having two links for what is a merging service. If the sites are both the
same in terms of full text content why have two sites at all, is one just a
subset of the other? Another major issue is that ingenta.com provides for
ATHENS authentication, Ingenta Select does not at present.

During the initial stages of the merger for each journal we maintained
either the link to Catchword or a link to ingenta.com, depending on which
site we originally set up our access, and continued to set up new
subscriptions as previously. We did not actively check our access on either
the ingenta.com site or the former Catchword site, partly because we had a
pile of other ejournals issues and problems to deal with!

So when I received latest Catchword Announce about Catchword becoming
Ingenta Select I thought it was time to go and have a closer look. The FAQs
on the Ingenta Select site proclaimed "we have merged our access rights
databases to ensure that subscribers can access their subscriptions on
whichever site they visit." "If you have already activated your
subscriptions on ingenta.com, you will not need to do it again on Ingenta
Select." "All institutional CatchWord and Ingenta registrations and
subscriptions are continually matched up to give you access to all of your
electronic journal subscriptions on both sites". "All existing links to
ingenta.com and catchword.com will continue to work, so there is no need for
you to change anything".  That's brilliant I thought, no extra work for us
to do then? If only that was true!

Getting a list of institutional subscriptions from either ingenta.com or
Ingenta Select is essential, but not without frustrations. The ingenta
listing of our subscriptions is a single alphabetical list by journal title,
which is not of a form which I can export into a spreadsheet. The Ingenta
Select subscription list is a little better, at least I can sort that by
publisher, but still not in a form I can export to a spreadsheet.

Initially I focussed on the "larger" publishers and soon became clear that
there were a large number of journals that we had access to on both
ingenta.com, but which are not showing as subscribed on either ingenta.com
or Ingenta Select. A lot of the problems seem to relate to journals that we
have access to as part of national deals and have always accessed through
ingenta.com, as well as direct from the publisher.

For example we have had access to all 194 Academic Press journals through
ingenta.com as part of national license agreements for many years now, but
their list of our subscriptions only listed 8. The Ingenta Select site too
only shows 8 Academic Press subscriptions. However after accessing a random
selection of Academic Press titles I seem to be able to access all Academic
Press titles through either site. Unfortunately on the Catchword site only
the 8 titles have subs next to them.

Again as part of a license agreement we should have access to most of the
journals published by Blackwell Publishing, but on Ingenta Select according
to the list of our subscriptions, we only have access to 144, and some of
these we don't have full access to, but only particular years. On
ingenta.com we are shown as having access to 143 titles. Also slightly
worrying is that some of the journals we don't have full access to are
e-only subscriptions of ours!!

Again as part of a license agreement we should have access to most Kluwer
journals through both sites, but only 5 show as subscriptions on ingenta.com
and Ingenta Select. However, I seem to be able to get into the full text of
a couple of the ones not listed as our subscriptions, but they are not
listed as subscriptions of ours on Ingenta Select.

At this point I basically gave up - if the subscriptions lists don't show
all our "subscriptions" how are we meant to make sure that we have access to
what we should be entitled to? What else is missing from the list? As I
found out with Academic Press, the fact that these are not listed as
subscriptions doesn't mean we don't have full text access. Am I to assume
that the situation is the same with other "larger" publishers?

I was pleased however to find that there were no problems with our
ScienceDirect subscriptions on either site, although both sites i.e.
ingenta.com and Ingenta Select suggested we had access to all the titles of
ScienceDirect. Elsevier shouldn't worry as I am assuming that we will only
get into the ones we have a right to access on ScienceDirect. However, the
picture for us and our users is bound to cause confusion and frustration if
items shown as subscribed when they are not showing as subscribed on
ScienceDirect.

What really puzzled me though was "If you are completely new to Ingenta,
please register at www.ingenta.com" - if it didn't matter which site we
used, or which URL we linked through why were new users being directed to
ingenta.com rather than Ingenta Select to register. Is that the advice I
should follow from now?

I hope this all makes sense! I better stop now before my pulse rises any
further.


Cheers
Lesley

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant,
Learning and Information Services,
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB UK
                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
phone:  01707 284662      fax: 01707 284666
web: http://www.herts.ac.uk/lis/subjects/natsci/ejournal/
list owner: [log in to unmask]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~