Hi Lesley & all,

I agree with your frustration about determining to which titles you have
"valid" access for the newly merged ingenta/Ingenta Select (CatchWord).  The
feature that I liked best about CatchWord was the "Subs" icon that displayed
upfront by each issue of a journal to which our campus has access.  Our
users knew immediately if they could access an article without an additional
charge.  As the online journals administrator, it made my work easier to
verify access had actually been activated.  It is really a step back if this
feature is no longer reliable.

As for links in our catalog, I am adding URLS for both sites.  I assume that
some of our users prefer ingenta and others prefer Ingenta Select.  It is
all part of the "service" we offer.

Ms. Jude A. Lynch
[log in to unmask]
Briscoe Library
UTHSCSA
MC 7940
7703 Floyd Curl Drive
San Antonio, Texas 78229-3900
210-567-2400
210-567-2490 fax


-----Original Message-----
From: Lesley Crawshaw [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 5:02 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: The Latest Chaper of the Continuing Integration of ingenta.com
and Ingenta Select - How Was It For You?


Hi,

I don't think I am the only one slightly confused/frustrated during the
continuing merger of ingenta.com and Ingenta Select (Catchword) and
trying with the help of others to maintain our access to everything our
institution should have a right to access. Which site should we link to
for new subscriptions?  Although all existing links will continue to
work, should we decide from now on to link to one but not the other? We
can't see the point of having two links for what is a merging service.
If the sites are both the same in terms of full text content why have
two sites at all, is one just a subset of the other? Another major issue
is that ingenta.com provides for ATHENS authentication, Ingenta Select
does not at present.

During the initial stages of the merger for each journal we maintained
either the link to Catchword or a link to ingenta.com, depending on
which site we originally set up our access, and continued to set up new
subscriptions as previously. We did not actively check our access on
either the ingenta.com site or the former Catchword site, partly because
we had a pile of other ejournals issues and problems to deal with!

So when I received latest Catchword Announce about Catchword becoming
Ingenta Select I thought it was time to go and have a closer look. The
FAQs on the Ingenta Select site proclaimed "we have merged our access
rights databases to ensure that subscribers can access their
subscriptions on whichever site they visit." "If you have already
activated your subscriptions on ingenta.com, you will not need to do it
again on Ingenta Select." "All institutional CatchWord and Ingenta
registrations and subscriptions are continually matched up to give you
access to all of your electronic journal subscriptions on both sites".
"All existing links to ingenta.com and catchword.com will continue to
work, so there is no need for you to change anything".  That's brilliant
I thought, no extra work for us to do then? If only that was true!

Getting a list of institutional subscriptions from either ingenta.com or
Ingenta Select is essential, but not without frustrations. The ingenta
listing of our subscriptions is a single alphabetical list by journal
title, which is not of a form which I can export into a spreadsheet. The
Ingenta Select subscription list is a little better, at least I can sort
that by publisher, but still not in a form I can export to a
spreadsheet.

Initially I focussed on the "larger" publishers and soon became clear
that there were a large number of journals that we had access to on both
ingenta.com, but which are not showing as subscribed on either
ingenta.com or Ingenta Select. A lot of the problems seem to relate to
journals that we have access to as part of national deals and have
always accessed through ingenta.com, as well as direct from the
publisher.

For example we have had access to all 194 Academic Press journals
through ingenta.com as part of national license agreements for many
years now, but their list of our subscriptions only listed 8. The
Ingenta Select site too only shows 8 Academic Press subscriptions.
However after accessing a random selection of Academic Press titles I
seem to be able to access all Academic Press titles through either site.
Unfortunately on the Catchword site only the 8 titles have subs next to
them.

Again as part of a license agreement we should have access to most of
the journals published by Blackwell Publishing, but on Ingenta Select
according to the list of our subscriptions, we only have access to 144,
and some of these we don't have full access to, but only particular
years. On ingenta.com we are shown as having access to 143 titles. Also
slightly worrying is that some of the journals we don't have full access
to are e-only subscriptions of ours!!

Again as part of a license agreement we should have access to most
Kluwer journals through both sites, but only 5 show as subscriptions on
ingenta.com and Ingenta Select. However, I seem to be able to get into
the full text of a couple of the ones not listed as our subscriptions,
but they are not listed as subscriptions of ours on Ingenta Select.

At this point I basically gave up - if the subscriptions lists don't
show all our "subscriptions" how are we meant to make sure that we have
access to what we should be entitled to? What else is missing from the
list? As I found out with Academic Press, the fact that these are not
listed as subscriptions doesn't mean we don't have full text access. Am
I to assume that the situation is the same with other "larger"
publishers?

I was pleased however to find that there were no problems with our
ScienceDirect subscriptions on either site, although both sites i.e.
ingenta.com and Ingenta Select suggested we had access to all the titles
of ScienceDirect. Elsevier shouldn't worry as I am assuming that we will
only get into the ones we have a right to access on ScienceDirect.
However, the picture for us and our users is bound to cause confusion
and frustration if items shown as subscribed when they are not showing
as subscribed on ScienceDirect.

What really puzzled me though was "If you are completely new to Ingenta,
please register at www.ingenta.com" - if it didn't matter which site we
used, or which URL we linked through why were new users being directed
to ingenta.com rather than Ingenta Select to register. Is that the
advice I should follow from now?

I hope this all makes sense! I better stop now before my pulse rises any
further.


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]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~