Hi,
As if there haven't already been enough problems for those of dealing
with ejournals this year, we have yet another one rearing its ugly head.
I think that those of us who signed up for the T&F NESLI deal for
2002-2003, may have had an inkling that this was on the horizon, as this
was in fact the first time that I had ever heard of MetaPress. In fact
it still seems to be a bit of a secret! However, as far as I know we
haven't had any communication from the publisher that MetaPress was to
be their primary service i.e. that with the most recent content on. I am
also disappointed that the currency of titles should be different on one
service compared to the other. That may explain why for one of our
subscriptions (haven't had the time to check any others) on Ingenta
Select, Journal of Sports Science the latest issue is December 2002
(this is a monthly publication!!). Unfortunately it's not up to date on
MetaPress either!!! So I am not sure what this says.
I have to say my initial experience with MetaPress was not a happy one:
One of the problems we faced right at the start is that we needed to set
up all the subscriptions on the MetaPress site ourselves, this included
not only the titles that we purchased through the NESLI deal, but the
substantial number of print/online subscriptions that we already had to
T&F journals. Only on asking were we provided with the information we
needed to do this. It also wasn't clear how one set up access to
backfiles of subscriptions that had been cancelled.
The next problem we encountered was that the only way to get hold of the
direct URLs for linking from our OPAC was to go to each journals
homepage and select "Linking Options". I was later provided with a list
of all MetaPress titles with direct links to them. I was told that
MetaPress was trying to develop a less time-consuming methods for doing
this.
The next problem was how we verified our subscriptions. I was told the
only way to verify our subscriptions presently was to go through the
list and see what is selected i.e. Again I was told that MetaPress was
trying to develop a less time-consuming methods for doing this. I did
try and register all our subscriptions with MetaPress, but never fully
completed the job. That was not a good omen.
There was also very little help for our users provided on the MetaPress
site.
Because of these problems, and because we have never received any
communications re: improvements to the MetaPress site we made a
deliberate decision not to add the links to MetaPress to our OPAC, as we
considered Ingenta and Ingenta Select (Catchword as it was) was a site
our users were already familiar with, and this (MetaPress) was yet
another site for our users to have to become familiar with, it required
us to try and maintain access to subscriptions at two sites rather than
one, plus the additional workload of adding yet another set of links to
our OPAC.
Having just been on the MetaPress site for the first time in almost 6
months and looked at our subscriptions we seem to have been given access
to some titles that we shouldn't e.g. Inverse Problems in Engineering,
The International Trade Journal, Journal of Substance Use, Numerical
Heat Transfer. These all have the little glasses next to them, which I
believe are meant to indicate that we have a subscription to the title.
However I can assure you we don't.
Another problem I have found is how MetaPress indicates title that one
has cancelled but still have access to the archive. We cancelled AIDS
Care at the end of 2001. On Ingenta Select this is clearly shown, with
the subs icon not appearing after 2001. On the MetaPress site we still
appear to have access to all the content. I guess I shouldn't be
complaining, but this is yet another glitch with this service, and
indicates that the subscription control system behind it is not working
as it should be. This may explain why we now have access to some
subscriptions that we shouldn't.
What this all suggests to me is that MetaPress has a long way to go
before we will consider placing links to it on our OPAC. Even then we
would prefer to access our T&F titles through Ingenta and Ingenta
Select. Will we still be able to do this and will the existing mean of
accessing our T&F titles be inferior to the one we have got used to?
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]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Louise Cole
Sent: 13 March 2003 14:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Taylor and Francis / Metapress
Dear all,
For those of you who have access to e-journals published by Taylor and
Francis, Carfax, Routledge etc.
Before January 2003 all content from Taylor and Francis and its group of
publishers was available via Ingenta Select. Now I have been told that
the content will appear earlier on a new service called Metapress, which
is directly linked to the publisher.
To set this up for your institution you will need to register online at
http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com. Access on-campus is by IP
authentication, access off-campus is by username and password.
I'd be interested to know if anyone got advance notice that this was
going to happen (especially those of us who have the NESLI deal for
e-only titles from this publisher)? The first we knew of it was in an
electronic access report dated 17/12/02 which said 'new access provider:
Metapress' against some titles. No announcement of what it was, and
certainly no help on setting it up until we asked ...
Best wishes
Louise
Louise Cole
Electronic Resources Team Leader
Health Sciences Library
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT
e-mail [log in to unmask]
tel 0113 343 5502
fax 0113 343 4381
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