Hi,

Despite best efforts transfer titles are still problematic especially for the subscriber trying to find out when the journal(s) in question is going to appear on the new publisher's site and when and if the backfile content is going to be transferred. Those of us who use Knowledge Bases to update our OPACs etc. often have to selectively activate access to this content and then wait for the next update so that we are pointing to the correct place for this content and this assumes that the KB is totally up to date with the content of the affected sites.

This email is not to point the finger of blame but to use a real example to illustrate the sorts of problems that can arise early in the year, the impact on users - together with the follow-up work that needs to be done to get resolution. Are we the only ones affected by the problems detailed in this email?

Just by chance today I bumped into a Pharmacy lecturer and he said he'd been having problems accessing an article from a 2009 issues of the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice on IngentaConnect and found that academic colleagues at several other institutions were also having  similar problems. This along with 2 other former Pharmaceutical Press journals (Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology and Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies) is being published by Wiley-Blackwell from 2010. I had already arranged that these titles be added to our licence with Wiley-Blackwell for 2010.

Now I'd checked WIS a week or so ago to see if any content had yet appeared on the site, which it hadn't, but it's impossible to do a check every day so I'd made a note to check in early February.

Following my chance encounter I decided to take a closer look. First I checked Wiley InterScience to see if the titles were available yet.

I found that in the case of International Journal of Pharmacy Practice (IJPP) and Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology (JPP) that 2009 content was now available for both titles and 2010 content available for JPP. However whilst I could access the 2010 content I was unable to access the 2009 content for both titles. I have since emailed our account manager at Wiley-Blackwell to correct this.

I then decided to check our access to these titles on IngentaConnect and found that we had lost all access to JPP (1999-2009) and 2008-2009 access to IJPP. I have since emailed ingenta to ask them to restore our access.  We still retain access to the backfiles of Pharmacy and Pharmacology Communications (incorporated into JPP from 2001) on IC.

I then checked the Serials Solutions for all these titles and it is not yet showing that JPP and IJPP are available through WIS. I have since emailed them asking that their Knowledge Base be updated.

Surely we need a published timetable for each transfer that all interested parties can have access to:

1.       When the title(s) will appear on the new site?

2.       If and when the backfile content will be loaded?

3.       When the 1st current content will be published?

4.       What will happen to the backfile content on the old site?

During this transition it is extremely important that there is no loss of access to the content on the old site and the new publisher should make sure that subscribers continue to be able to access this.

In the current financial climate that we find ourselves in journals have to prove their value against other subscriptions in order to be retained. Yet when the problems illustrated here occur it will have a negative impact on usage. The usage of transferred titles often takes a substantial time to recover following transfer.  As collection and analysis of usage data become increasingly automated through services such as SwetsWise Selection Support and 360 COUNTER how are these potential underlying reasons for declining usage for particular journals going to be highlighted?

Dealing with such problems is extremely time-consuming for librarians - all in all I've spent over 2 hours  gathering the information and emailing the relevant parties (this doesn't include the time it's taken to put write this email.  As subscribers we've paid for the rights to access this content - shouldn't we be entitled to a refund when such problems occurred?

Cheers
Lesley

Lesley Crawshaw
Knowledge &  Business Intelligence Consultant
Information Hertfordshire
University of Hertfordshire
Tel: 01707 285508






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