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As usual, Lesley articulates well all my own frustrations. It remains a wonder why many of the publishers who give online access via their own site are unable to communicate internally efficiently (and with other service prioviders) and set up access to titles that they know we subscribe to. Unfortunately, we have not had the same experience of Ingenta as Lesley - we have attempted to get a definitive list of our online titles via Ingenta and ended up with 4 different lists (from Ingenta!) - we gave up, I'm afraid! Generally, tallying up lists and online subscriptions with publishers or service providers is an impossible task. We have a go every now and then, when staff time permits, but rarely (never!) get to the point when everything is correct. Before sending this email, I thought I would just check the title Lesley mentions, Journal of sports science, as this is one we have just started subscribing to. We have set up an online link via Swetswise, our agent, and had not bothered with Metapress because of the problems with them, so I assumed eveything was ok. However, I've just discovered that Swetswise have linked directly to metapress who have not set up our access!!! AAHHH! Sandra Morris Electronic Information Development Officer Hugh Owen Library Information Services, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, SY23 3DZ Email: [log in to unmask] Extension: 1892 Phone: (01970) 621892 FAX: (01970) 622404 -----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: 13 March 2003 17:01 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Taylor and Francis / Metapress 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