Lesley
Spot on. I believe all other online platforms make the distinction
between subscribed content and freebies, so why not MetaPress?
Just as the publishers/ALPSP have formed a progressive Transfer "working
group", perhaps we need a similar kind of vehicle so that e-subscribers
can iron out an array of issues with publishers, agents and online
hosts, or is there such a beast already? Porbably a bit too nebulous for
a Friday afternoon...
Warmest regards,
Dominic
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-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lesley Crawshaw
Sent: 07 July 2006 14:39
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Icon Confusion - The Case of the MetaPress Glasses
Hi,
We've been spending a lot of time recently checking access to some of
our titles on MetaPress for work we are doing with Serials Solutions.
One of the things that has really frustrated us over the years is that
the glasses used by MetaPress often appear when all we have access to is
one "freebie" issue. This means that the glasses can't be relied upon to
tell us what we have access to and it means we have to go into every
title to see if it is a real subscription or just a freebie issue or
two.
One might think that filtering the publications by viewable publications
might filter these freebie issues out, but of course if doesn't.
I can only imagine the confusion that this causes to our users if they
happen to visit the MetaPress site and try and access what looks like a
viewable publication and then find that all they can access is a single
issue and not the whole collection.
I have raised this (and a number of other issues) with MetaPress over
the years - indeed I dug out an old email sent to MetaPress back in
March 2003 raising this exact issue. They replied saying "any title with
viewable content (sample, subscription of free) will show up with the
"eyeglasses"
icon, and will also display when "Filter Viewable Items only" is
selected. I have contacted our development team with your suggestion for
altering the eyeglasses icon to differentiate between the various types
of access available, and they are currently looking into this
suggestion".
It does appear that the suggestions to have more appropriate icons to
differentiate between the different access arrangements was never taken
forward my MetaPress. This is a real shame.
Does anyone else out there find this confusing and want something doing
about this or is it just us?
Cheers
Lesley
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Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant Learning and Information
Services University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB
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email: [log in to unmask]
phone: 01707 284662 fax: 01707 284666
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