Hi,
Have most publishers learnt nothing from all our comments over the years!!??
We are their ultimate customers at the end of the day - surely caring and
responding to the needs of the customers should be one of their highest
priorities, especially in a time of constant change.
The problems we face maintaining up to date links are a major headache and
workload for all of us, most of us don't have the time to constantly check
our links, many of us have to rely on helpful users to inform us of any
problems like loss of access, changed links, changed online coverage etc..
However many problems remain unreported?? It is a strange world indeed when
the customer has to do all of this work themselves.
In response to the original question I do have a copy of an email sent to
this list about forthcoming changes to CUP Online dated 07/09/00, so CUP did
make an effort to inform us of possible impending changes to their service -
however that is the only email I ever saw and it didn't mention changes in
the URLs. If I remember correctly I had to make a note to keep going back to
their site on a regular basis to see if the changes had occurred, so that I
could make appropriate amendments to our links.
We seem to be lucky in that our existing URLs still work e.g for
Environmental Conservation we are using
http://www.journals.cup.org/owa_dba/owa/ISSUES_IN_JOURNAL?JID=ENC, although
they are no longer in the format that is recommended on the CUP pages.
However, I was told that these links will continue to work, and that it was
up to me if I wanted to adopt the new format.
What I can't understand is that why as the named account administrator for
many of the journals/journal services I hardly ever receive information
about changes to services, links, increased online coverage etc. via this
route. Yet, surely this would be the best route for keeping us up to date.
Earlier this year we found that all our links to the Optical Society of
America journals had changed + they had extended the online backfiles, yet
there was no communication from OSA about this, even though the account
under which the online access was set up had my name attached. Again I only
found out because a helpful user and friend of mine informed me that our
links were no longer working. I found out that the problem arose because
they had begun to host their journals inhouse. Since we are paying for
print/online access is it not an obligation on the publisher to make sure
it's customers are informed of such changes.
Whilst this list is a useful vehicle for bringing such issues to the fore, I
believe that the onus should be on the publishers to communicate with the
named contacts/administrators of their services.
Cheers
Lesley
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Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant, LIS,
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB UK
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e-mail: [log in to unmask]
phone: 01707 284662 fax: 01707 284666
web: http://www.herts.ac.uk/lis/subjects/natsci/ejournals/
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-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list, set up under the auspices of the United
Kingdom Seri [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of
M.Tattersall
Sent: 24 May 2001 14:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Change to CUP e journal URLs
We have discovered that CUP have changed the URLs for all their
titles. This means that we need to change our local URL exclusion
table to bypass the JANET cache, amend our Web pages and
OPAC records. If CUP journals were covered by any linkage service
we use, then our records for that would have to be altered too.
Several questions arise from this experience:
1 would it be useful to this sort of change to the lis-e-journals list?
2 did other libraries get advance notice of these changes by other
means?
3 do other libraries have a similar workload arising from them?
4 would other libraries welcome the opportunity to evaluate changes
to e journal services ahead of their full implemenation?
I would be very interested to exchange experience both on this
particular case and the general area of keeping tabs on ejournal
supply.
Regards
marion Tattersall
********************************************************************
Marion Tattersall email:[log in to unmask]
Electronic Library Group phone direct:0114 222 7281
Main Library fax: 0114 222 7290
University of Sheffield http://www.shef.ac.uk/~lib
Sheffield S10 2TN
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