Content area
The Ohio Library and Information Network, OhioLINK, is a consortium of Ohio's college and university libraries and the State Library of Ohio. Since 1992, when OhioLINK's central catalog was first implemented, the consortium's union listing and serials holing activities have shifted from an emphasis on print holdings in individual libraries for traditional interlibrary lending to dealing with holdings for electronic serials purchased with group licenses and with related issues for linking catalog records, abstracting and indexing data. Current work centers on using one record or separate records for multiple versions of a serial (especially print and electronic), the most comprehensible display for resources owned by the consortium as a group instead of by separate libraries, information about and display of holdings information for the electronic version of serial, and consistent metadata.
Keywords
Electronic publishing, Journal publishing, Serials, Academic libraries, Cataloguing, USA
Abstract
Since 1992, when OhioLINK's central catalog was first implemented, the consortium's union listing and serials holdings activities have shifted from an emphasis on print holdings in individual libraries for traditional inter-library lending to dealing with holdings for electronic serials purchased with group licenses and with related issues for linking catalog records, abstracting and indexing data. Current work centers on using one record or separate records for multiple versions of a serial (especially print and electronic), the most comprehensible display for resources owned by the consortium as a group instead of by separate libraries, information about and display of holdings information for the electronic version of serial, and consistent metadata.
The Ohio Library and Information Network, OhioLINK, is a consortium of Ohio's college and university libraries and the State Library of Ohio. Serving more than 500,000 students, faculty, and staff at 79 institutions, OhioLINK offers access to more than 31 million library items statewide. OhioLINK also provides access to 98 research databases, including a variety of full-text resources. OhioLINK's membership includes 17 public universities, 23 community/technical colleges, 38 independent colleges and the State Library of Ohio. Since 1992, when OhioLINK's central catalog was first implemented, the consortium's union listing and serials holdings activities have shifted from an emphasis on print holdings in individual libraries for traditional inter-library lending to dealing with holdings for electronic serials purchased with group licenses and with related issues for linking catalog records, abstracting and indexing data.
The systems configuration of OhioLINK libraries' catalogs is that each institution or subconsortium group runs its own Innopac catalog. In addition, each of these catalogs has a real-time link to the central catalog, and contributes most of its holdings to this central site. This functionality, which was originally developed for OhioLINK, is now the Innovative Interfaces Inn-Reach product. The central catalog acts as a repository of library holdings and the real-time status of those holdings for OhioLINK, allowing activities such as patron-initiated borrowing and the variety of functions associated with OhioLINK serials union listing information. Although some OhioLINK libraries make item records for serials, what generally appears in the central catalog for serials is a summary holdings statement or statements for each owning institution. Libraries contribute the summary holdings statement from the check-in record, not the detailed information of the Innopac check-in card. These statements are in a brief free-text field, and are informally known as "Library has statements."
During the initial years of OhioLINK, staff at member libraries spent considerable energy on standards for formulating these summary holdings. Many people took great pains to create, preserve, or enhance these statements when they migrated from other systems, or from card catalogs, to their Innopac systems. The goal was to provide comprehensible displays for patrons and librarians for fairly conventional inter-library lending activities, generally of print materials. At that time, patron-initiated online borrowing was available for print monographs only. For other material not available at their home library, patrons either traveled to another location or used traditional inter-library loan. Because of the variety of systems from which libraries had migrated, and the variety of acceptable standards within the library community, there is considerable latitude in constructing summary statements. In addition, OhioLINK has never required that libraries convert older statements to one of the prescribed forms.
The focus of concern changed four years ago when OhioLINK signed its first license for electronic journals with Academic Press. Although libraries still subscribe to many print serials, the focus of the consortium's activities turned to acquiring and managing electronic subscriptions. Today, OhioLINK runs an Electronic Journal Center (EJC), and has licenses for electronic journals with nine publishers, including over 3,000 titles. OhioLINK has aggregated these journals on its own site with software to search the titles directly. Managing the serials from its own site also allows OhioLINK to build links more easily between the Electronic Journal Center and other resources, such as holdings in the union catalog and the research databases.
With the Innopac software, OhioLINK members have had a Web-based OPAC for some time, with the facility to use the 856 field in the bibliographic record to generate a link from a catalog to the corresponding journal in the Electronic Journal Center. OhioLINK has had ongoing contracts with OCLC TECHPRO to provide cataloging for electronic serials to member libraries, both for initial groups of records as it has signed licenses with publishers, and for ongoing maintenance of these titles. At the point where members of the consortium began to own a number of electronic serials together, the cataloging and union listing activities within OhioLINK changed to the following concerns:
Using one record or separate records for multiple versions of a serial (especially print and electronic).
The most comprehensible display for resources owned by the consortium as a group instead of by separate libraries.
Information about and display of holdings information for the electronic version of serials.
Consistent metadata.
Using one record or separate records for multiple versions
Mirroring the national library community, currently OhioLINK allows its members to use one record or separate records, depending on the perception of local needs. The practice followed, even among libraries with a firm policy on cataloging multiple versions, is mixed. In a recent survey, almost all OhioLINK libraries were able to list both their policy on cataloging multiple versions and the instances where they make exceptions to that policy. As a result, records reflecting both points of view are contributed to the central catalog. OhioLINK has encouraged this situation, with a standard stating that: "Separate records for the print and the electronic versions of resources purchased by OhioLINK are required in the OhioLINK central catalog." Consequently, when OhioLINK has bought the electronic version of a title and libraries also own the print edition, there are usually two records in the central catalog, one for the print and one for the electronic version. Since OhioLINK contracts with TECHPRO to date have been for the electronic version of the serial, OhioLINK has further indirectly encouraged the use of separate records for multiple versions, even within libraries that normally have a one-record policy. In many cases, libraries have loaded these records "as is," even while maintaining a different policy for other material.
Recently, OhioLINK committees have been looking at the multiple versions question more intensively. Although this was first fueled by observations and debates over the cataloging of electronic monographs, conversation quickly turned to serials as well. OhioLINK committees have indicated a preference for one catalog record for multiple versions, as have many public services librarians within OhioLINK. At the same time, this position is not unanimous among catalogers and other technical services librarians. Issues for this group include concern over emerging national standards, concern that the electronic and paper versions are not identical intellectual entities, and concern that staff unfamiliar with the complexity of serials cataloging may be overstating the benefits of one record for multiple formats to the user.
There are also significant workflow issues and expenses in moving to one record for multiple formats. How much is that convenience worth? Is it worth modifying print records even when it is quicker and easier to simply load a separate record for the electronic version? How much staff time is involved in modifying the record to add information about other formats? How much delay and expense is acceptable? To what extent, if any, do staff members in OhioLINK libraries wish to modify or merge existing records? Because the union catalog is constructed from records contributed from all libraries' local systems, all OhioLINK libraries' workflow issues need to be considered in answering these questions. For example, currently, the "Recommendations on cataloging OhioLINK consortially-owned resources" require that information about the electronic version be appended to the print version of a record. In reality, libraries seldom implement this, because of the time involved. Will OhioLINK continue this requirement if committees decide to use separate records for multiple formats? As more and more electronic serials and monographs are added to the OhioLINK suite of services, it becomes more imperative to fix on how to represent them in the catalog. What is the price OhioLINK members are willing to pay to have that done in the fashion they feel is best?
Libraries differ on how much work this engenders; the variables seem to be staffing levels in general and the number and proficiency of the student workers available. On the other hand, if a library uses the two-record approach, staff simply load new records.
Comprehensible display
Closely related to the multiple versions question is the issue of what is the most comprehensible display for resources owned by the consortium as a whole. This issue has become even more complicated because, in the last few years, OhioLINK's membership has expanded. Initially, OhioLINK members were the publicly supported academic libraries and the State Library. Today, its members include almost all the independent college libraries in Ohio as well. Where once all members of the consortium had access to all its resources, OhioLINK is now in a situation where that is no longer true; access depends on whether each member is state supported and depends on what resources each member is willing to buy. In the case of many resources, the consortium as a whole owns the resource, but not every member has access to that resource. So, the consortium owns thousands of electronic journals, and most, but not all, OhioLINK members have access to those journals. In addition, OhioLINK members also purchase electronic serials on their own, outside of the consortium. In some cases, for example, only three OhioLINK institutions may have licenses for a particular electronic journal. Catalogers have relied on a series of "restricted access" notes to explain to catalog users what institution does or does not have access to a resource. As many people have known or suspected, our experience is that users often do not read these sorts of notes when they are buried in bibliographic records.
At present, OhioLINK and other Inn-Reach sites are discussing an enhancement with Innovative Interfaces for contributing and displaying multiple URLs from sites. Although these displays are likely to be more complex than those we now use, they may also be more accurate. They may give patrons more precise information about material to which they do not have access.
information about and display of holdings information for the electronic version of serials
One would naively imagine that one could ask a publisher when the electronic version started and receive an easy answer. One would also imagine that it would be easy to tell what publications are included in a publisher's license agreement. This is almost never the case; the same complications of the paper world of serials publishing have carried over into the electronic world. Generally, OhioLINK buys a license for all of a publisher's electronic serials content. In some cases, this excludes certain publications. Sometimes this is due to licensing restrictions; in other cases, there are technical problems with digitizing older issues or issues from certain titles. In still other cases, the publisher is still in the process of digitizing the serial, and is unwilling or unable to say what the start date will be in the future. This has made holdings statements vague, inaccurate, or subject to big changes. Occasionally, OhioLINK staff have said flippantly that the "Library Has" statement for some electronic serials should be "Whatever you see in the EJC today."
Some libraries have diligently maintained holdings statements, making changes as Ohio][INK adds back issues, and closing holdings statements, as information is available. Others have relied on the link to the Electronic Journal Center's holdings display to communicate that information to patrons. As with many other display issues, this one may change, depending on the decisions made about cataloging for multiple versions. Holdings data displays for electronic serials may be much more important if they are closely paired with print holdings on one screen.
Periodically, the OhioLINK community has had discussions and investigations into starting patron-initiated borrowing for journal articles. Recently, OhioLINK committees have resurrected those discussions again. They are considering a number of options, including some that would be heavily dependent on machine interpretation of holdings in the central catalog. One of the variables under analysis is whether a computer can parse the summary holdings statements in the central catalog, since these statements exist in several different formats, and may not always record every gap in holdings reliably.
Consistent metadata
When OhioLINK loads electronic serials to the Electronic Journal Center the publisher also supplies metadata. In most cases, both the metadata and the information within the data use the print ISSN as a match point. In addition, almost all abstracting and indexing databases use only the print ISSN within their citation data. Matching from these databases to both the Electronic Journal Center and the central catalog is a crucial part of the experience OhioLINK wants to present to users. So staff use the print ISSN to construct a reliable URL and to link to citation databases. If there are problems with the ISSN, in the bibliographic catalog record, within the citation database, or in the publisher's metadata, the links are not made properly. Given the number of systems involved, metadata problems can crop up anywhere for a variety of reasons. They are particularly thorny when they involve title and ISSN changes, just as they do in the world of print serials.
Many of the catalog and holdings issues from the world of print serials continue to hold true as OhioLINK moves into the world of electronic serials. In some cases, the use and cataloging of electronic serials has provided a chance to reexamine practices, and to change or reaffirm them. The next series of issues in the world of electronic serials cataloging and holdings for OhioLINK members to confront will probably be the cataloging of full text from aggregators' databases, as members discuss and standardize the best way to do this within the context of the consortium.
The author
Anne Gilliland is Assistant Director of Library Systems -- Database Management, OhioLINK, Columbus, Ohio, USA.
Copyright MCB UP Limited (MCB) 2000