I recently had to check our subscriptions and found the new arrangement of volumes and issues slowed the process down considerably. There was nothing to indicate which dates/volumes were on which page - no help at all when scrolling through. 
The icons are no help to us because we have no access to the older backfiles so they show as partially available whether it is the current year or the whole of the recent backfile. 

Best wishes

Olwyn

Olwyn Reynard, Electronic Resources Librarian, Kimberlin Library, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH
Tel 0116 2577865
email [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 jennifer maddock (BI)
Sent: 28 September 2006 15:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The New Springer Site - Icon Confusion Remains

Hi Lesley,

We've also found the new system very confusing.  We have four subscriptions and they all show as partial access only, because we don't have access to any of the backfiles.  Then Springer recently cut off access to our subscriptions and we found that checking to see what exactly had been cut off and whether it had been restored yet was very time-consuming; it takes a long time to page down from 2006 volumes to 1997 ones.  Why do all the issues have to appear on the main page?  On most other sites there is a link for the volume, which shows your entitlement and which you use to access the issues that make up that volume. 

Best wishes,

Jennifer.

*******************************************

Jennifer Maddock
Librarian
The Babraham Institute
Babraham Research Campus
Cambridge CB2 4AT
United Kingdom

Tel: +44-1223-496235
Fax: +44-1223-496027
Email: [log in to unmask] 

*******************************************

The information transmitted in this email is directed only to the person to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. It should not be read, copied, disclosed or used by any person other than the intended recipient. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is forbidden and may be unlawful. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any digital recovery source or other databases. 

The contents of this e-mail are the views of the sender and do not necessarily represent the views of the Babraham Institute or the BBSRC. 

Although we have taken steps to check that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advise that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should also ensure they are actually virus free.


-----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: 28 September 2006 14:48
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: The New Springer Site - Icon Confusion Remains

Hi,

Does anyone else out there find the assignment of the access icons on the
new Springer site disappointing and confusing?  

The reason for raising this is that I assume that the new icons are meant to
be more helpful in identifying access rights to us than they were on the old
site, but my feeling is that all that has changed are the icons themselves,
although at least an explanation of what each icon stands for is now
available. 

In our own case, we have access to most of the post-1997 content on
SpringerLink, but not to the pre-1997 content, hence the icons next to our
journal titles are almost all now showing as partial access. However, there
are some journals that are showing as partial access where all that we have
access to are the articles from a single issue. 

Does the fact that the same partial access icon is used for both access to a
complementary single issue and for more substantial access e.g. 1997 to date
confuse your users?

Isn't it about time that MetaPress found a different way of displaying
access to a free issue than using the same icon that identifies access to
subscribed content? On ScienceDirect they use a different icon to denote
where complementary access has been given to all or part of a journal.
Shouldn't MetaPress consider doing something similar?

However, the situation gets even more confusing when one goes down to volume
level. If I look at the following journal Cognitive Therapy and Research on
the new site I find that at the journal title level the icon is showing as
partial access which is correct, because we only have access to the
post-1997 content. However if I go to the volume/issue level some of the
volumes have the full access icon showing and some of the volumes have the
partial access icon showing. In both of these cases the icons at issue level
are all showing as full access, which is what we have. This doesn't make
sense at all, surely if one has access to all the content in a volume then
the icon should be showing as full access. 

Has anyone else out there experienced icon confusion with both the new
Springer MetaPress site and the old MetaPress sites?

Cheers
Lesley


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant, 
Learning and Information Services 
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: [log in to unmask]
phone: 01707 284662 fax: 01707 284666
list owner: [log in to unmask]
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~