Hi,
This may not be relevant to your problems, but...
We had several problems earlier this year with our ScienceDirect account. I
had decided I would cross check our access for all the content on
ScienceDirect against a spreadsheet I've been maintaining ever since we
signed our first SD contract. As I began this process a number of problems
began to appear. First I found that we had lost access to the 1993 and 1994
issues of our Academic Press titles, which we had licensed under the terms
of a previous deal. Then I found that we had lost access to some titles
just because they had ceased publication. Then I found that our access to
some former Harcourt Health Science titles had ceased. Then a couple of
students informed me that they couldn't access the latest issues of
Environmental Pollution, one of our subscribed etitles. On checking again it
became apparent that we had lost 2004 access to all our subscribed etitles.
The worse thing about all of this was that somethings changed as I was
checking, meaning I had to keep going back again and checking. In fact as is
often the case I never managed to complete the checking of all our access on
SD, as I suddenly found we had another set of access problems with another
major publisher!
I should say that once identified all the problems on ScienceDirect were
resolved very quickly. However, the onus is on us to identify the problems,
and that is a very onerous task indeed.
At the time we seemed to be the only institution (we are still under the
terms of the NESLI license, not the NESLI2 license), which was experiencing
these problems, so I never bought it to the attention of the list.
These sorts of problems are certainly not restricted to ScienceDirect. We
seem to have had so many problems with our eaccess to all kinds of
publishers and services this year.
In fact, subscription access control systems seem to be a major weakness in
many ejournal delivery services. Whether it relates to poor quality
subscription data held by the publisher or the links between the publisher's
subscription/collection data and the systems that host the
subscriptions/collections I really can't be sure. It is certainly an area
where improvement is urgently needed. We are after all at the end of the day
paying substantial amounts of money for these services. Why should the onus
then be on us to make sure we have access to what we have paid for? The onus
must be on the publisher to make sure that their subscribers get the service
they have paid for.
Anyway, time to look at the next problem!
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 Eileen Jamieson
Sent: 19 August 2004 09:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Journals disappearing from ScienceDirect
>Hi
>
>We have had a recurring problem with journals suddenly disappearing
>from our subscribed list on ScienceDirect (and Web Editions before
>this). This week I've just discovered another 10 are missing. That's
>about 15% of our Elsevier e-journals that we can't get full text access
>to. It doesn't seem to be related to subs renewal, but I could be wrong
>about this. I would be interested in knowing how widespread this
>problem is. Has anyone else had this problem, or is it just us?
>
>
>
>Ms Eileen Jamieson
>Electronic Services Group
>
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>Library and Information Services
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