A New Systematic Approach to Cataloging Full-Text Electronic Journals:

the HKBU Library Experience

LI Yiu On

Systems Librarian

Hong Kong Baptist University Library yoli@hkbu.edu.hk

First Annual Hong Kong INNOPAC Users Meeting15 November, 2000

Hong Kong Baptist University

Revised: 21 Dec., 2000

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A New Systematic Approach to Cataloging E-Journals

Outline

I. Introduction

II. Traditional Approach to Cataloging E-Journals

III. New Systematic Approach

IV. Conclusion

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I. Introduction: Background

Library Investment -- E-Journal subscriptions have increased rapidly in the past few years. More E-Journals titles are expected to be acquired in future

Change of Publishing Industry – discount is granted to the library for subscribing the electronic version, e.g. Emerald, OUP. More printed issues will be switched to online versions

Expectation of Library Users – able to retrieve the journal articles online in a simple, consistent, and direct way

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Users’ Expectation

Integrate E-Journals to OPAC: OPAC should reflect the library collection

OPAC serves as a gateway of research

Some index/abstract databases provide a function to let the users to check the library's online catalog for current holdings by ISSN (e.g. ERL, Web of Science)

A separate complete E-Journal title list on the library homepage:

For ease of browsing / a highlight of a special collection

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II. Traditional Approach to Handle E-Journals

Work are handled by various Sections

Journal Acquisitions

Journal Cataloging

WWW Complete E-Journal List

Acquisition/Serial

Cataloging

Systems

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Traditional Approach -- Problems

1. Incomplete E-Journal Records Unable to integrate all E-Journal titles to other library resources in our

OPAC (e.g full-text journal titles included in PQD, Academic Universe, EbscoHost databases)

2. Record Inconsistencies Cataloging principles or rules to describe e-journal titles adopted by

various sections are not standardized E-Journal title list on library homepage vs. OPAC E-Journal Catalog

Records

3. Incorrect Data Obsolete records (e.g. BPO, Emerald records) Invalid URLs and outdated coverage note

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Causes of Problems

1. High cataloging cost

2. Duplicate labor efforts used in creating complete E-Journal title list on library homepage

3. High ongoing maintenance cost

4. Perpetual right to access E-Journal titles

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High Labor Cost for E-Journal Cataloging (1)

Thousands of journal titles are included in large E-Journal databases, e.g.

Databases Full-Text E-Journal Titles

Academic Universe 4,384

Academic Search FullTextElite (EbscoHost)

1,342

ProQuest (ABI + ARL) 2,017

Total 7,743

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High Labor Cost for E-Journal Cataloging (2)

Assumptions: All catalog records can be downloaded from OCLC (no

original cataloging is performed) Average time of serial cataloging is from 10 to 20 minutes

(NOT including the work of adding the direct URL links, coverage note, etc…)*

Average cataloging time for one E-Journal title: 15 minutes

*Jones, Neil. “Network-accessible resources and the redefinition of technical services”. OCLC Systems & Services, vol. 14, no. 1, 1998, p. 29

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High Labor Cost for E-Journal Cataloging (3)

It will take a total of 116,145 minutes (1,935 hours) to catalog all the full-text E-Journal titles included in AU, EbscoHost, and PQD

If a cataloger works 40 hours per week, it will use 48.39 working weeks to complete project

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Labor Cost for Creating Complete E-Journal on Library Homepage

Assumption the time required to create a complete E-Journal title list on

Library homepage equals 1/3 of the cataloging time

It will take additional 16.13 working weeks

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Updating/Maintenance Cost

E-journals included in the above three databases are not permanent.

New titles are added monthly while some titles are removed without advanced notification

Assumptions: the maintenance work will take 5% of working hours used in

cataloging E-Journal and creating E-Journal title list on homepage

Maintenance works equal 3.22 working weeks per year

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Total Labor Cost

The processing time for cataloging/handling the full-text E-Journals in the large databases, AU, EbscoHost and PQD is

Weeks

Cataloging Time 48.39

E-Journal List (homepage) 16.13

Maintenance (Annually) 3.22

Total 67.74

(1.3 Years)

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Perpetual Right to Access E-Journal Titles (1)

Unlike the other library acquired materials, the library does not have the perpetual right to access the E-Journal titles available in the above databases

The library may only access these e-journal titles as long as subscription continues

Indeed, even the above database publishers/vendors do not have the perpetual rights themselves, it explains why E-Journal titles are going in/out of these databases

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Perpetual Right to Access E-Journal Titles (2)

A question comes up: Should the Library devote such huge manpower and

resources in cataloging e-journals and in maintaining a separate complete e-journal title list on the homepage when the library does not have a permanent right to access them ?

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A Time to Change

Answer: YES (reason see p. 2-3) If yes, should we rely on the traditional manual

cataloging approach to handle E-Journal titles? Is it possible to have a more cost-effective and timely

means for providing access to all library subscribed E-Journal titles?

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III. A New Systematic Approach

The E-Journal Project was carried out in March 2000 This Project was proposed by the Systems Section

with support from the Acquisitions, Cataloging and Reference Section

Stage 1: completed in April 2000 Stage 2: completed in November 2000

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E-Journal Project Goal (1)

To enable library users to access E-Journal titles in a simple, consistent, direct and accurate way

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E-Journal Project Goal (2)

Simple* provide one-stop shopping for users to access E-Journals all E-Journal titles are integrated to other library resources

in OPAC a single catalog record approach is most preferable

*Helfer, Doris Small. “The trend in academia: one stop shopping for students”. Searcher, Nov/Dec 97, vol. 5, issue 10.

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E-Journal Project Goal (3)

Consistent* recommend general rules and basic data elements for

cataloging E-Journal titles

*Program For Cooperative Cataloging. “PCC Standing Committee on Automation (SCA). Task Group on Journals in Aggregator Databases. Final Report” January 2000. Http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/aggfinal.html

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E-Journal Project Goal (4)

Direct the URL link should go directly to journal title page rather

than the database homepage

Accurate propose a systematic and efficient record maintenance

strategy for E-Journals found in AU, EbscoHost, and PQD

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E-Journal Project Tasks

Tasks To integrate all the full-text E-Journal titles to the other

library resources in OPAC To compile and publish a complete library subscribed E-

Journal title list on the library homepage To design an ongoing maintenance mechanism

Working Philosophy Work should be accomplished in a simple, systematic, and

efficient way with maximum staff involvement and minimum staff works

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Two Types of E-Journals

According to the ways of access and subscription, E-Journal titles may be divided into two types:

Unstable Titles Stable Titles

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Unstable E-Journal Titles

Library accesses these E-Journal titles via a large index/abstract database, e.g. AU, EbhostHost, PQD

Journal titles are not owned by the database publishers Journal titles going in/out databases frequently

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Stable E-Journal Titles

Library has a direct subscription to these titles Online versions provided with the subscribed printed issues, e.g.

Cambridge Journals Online, SwetsNets Titles having online version only, e.g. Emerald, OUP

Database vendors own the perpetual rights of the E-Journals joint venture projects like JSTOR, Project Muse

They are stable in the sense that they will not go in/out of OPAC frequently even the library does not have a right to access them permanently

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Manual & Computer Generated Catalog Records

Stable titles --> Manually Created Catalog Records New records downloaded from OCLC, handled by

Cataloging Section Adding URLs to individual subscribed titles, handled by

Serials staff Unstable titles --> Computer Generated Records

Based on the list provided by the database vendor Records generated by computer program automatically Handled by Systems Section

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Stable E-Journals Having Print Issues

Add the following tags to the existing catalog records: e.g. MindTags Descriptions

599 Coverage Note (usually with the date of full-textavailablility)

740 Database Title

856 URL (direct URL to journal title page if possible)

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Stable E-Journals having Online Version Only

Download full records from OCLC Add the above MARC tags to this new records Note:

record does not have attached item record Bib location is “er” (Electronic Resources)

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Full MARC Record Set Provided by Vendors

Based on the suggestions by PCC, some database vendors are going to provide their full MARC record sets: Academic Search Fulltext Elite by EbscoHost ProQuest (available in November)

Maintenance can be simply done uploading the new complete set regularly all records remaining with a prior date in the system are

deleted

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Full MARC Record from EbscoHost

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Restrictions on Using Vendor Provided MARC Records (1)

Different record sets have different overlaid tag 035 Multiple records will be created for the same title

found in different databases

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Restrictions on Using Vendor Provided MARC Records (2)

No. of duplicate titles in three aggregator databases

Multiple record approach: 7,730 catalog records Single record approach: 6,665 catalog records Duplicate records: 1,065 catalog records

AU EB PQDAU 4376 162 275EB 162 1342 731PQD 275 731 2012

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Restrictions on Using Vendor Provided MARC Records (3)

Some tags are not supported by the HKBU Innopac system, including: tag 773 Database vendor title -- not indexed tag 856 subfield 3 Coverage Note -- cannot be displayed in

WebPAC tag 856 contains in-house Perl script, e.g. PQD and AU

which will not be provided by vendor

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Unstable E-Journals Records Generated by Computer Automatically

A computer program is specially designed to create E-Journal records automatically This program can compile a complete full-text E-Journal

list based on the list provided by database vendors (titles only with index/abstract are excluded)

Single record approach: Titles duplicate in AU, EbscoHost and PQD will be joined together to create a single catalog record, e.g. ABA Banking Journal

Create a dynamic 035 tag for record maintenance Create a direct URL link

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Basic MARC Tags for Unstable E-Journals Records

001: Library Name with Record Creation Date 022: ISSN 035 Dynamic Unique Record Overlaid Point 245 Journal Title + GMD, (i.e. [computer file]) 599 Coverage Note 740 Database Title 856 Direct URL

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How to Create a Direct URL

Tag 856 in Innopac can only accept 90 characters The direct URL to AU and PQD journal title page

exceeds that length, e.g. the direct link to search the journal title “South China Morning Post” in AU ishttp://cisweb.lexis-nexis.com/sourceselect/listSources.asp?

srcpdn=academic&_session=cad47e44-14ef-11d4-b2b3-8a0c585aaa77.1.3133490923.73209.+.0.0&_state=&wchp=dGLkbb-lSlAl&_md5=a98aa4fef57ddd1310d948dad2a1eaf5&product=universe&unix=http%3A%2F%2Fweb.lexis-nexis.com%2Funiverse&extendRQ=Y&title=south+china+morning+post

An in-house Perl script is specially designed to shorten the URL length as http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/lib-cgi/au.pl?t=South+China+Morning+Post

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How to Create a Dynamic Tag 035

The tag used for record updating How to generate / calculate an unique tag 035 field for

each journal title Use ISSN if available--> “ej” + ISSN, e.g. ABA Banking Journal Use title truncation, the formula is: “ej” + first 2 characters of the

first three words + first 2 characters of the last word + last 2 characters of the first two words + last 2 & 3 characters of the last word + total length of that title

ejsochmopothnaos24 for South China Morning Post in case of duplicate string, the string will be automatically increased

by 1

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MARC Conversion Program

The program will try to find the full MARC records from various databases provided If found, a full record + basic MARC tags will be generated If not found, a brief record (basic MARC tags) will be used

Convert the complete title list to MARC format Upload the records to Innopac system

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Algorithms to Create Computer Generated Records

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Number of Records Generated by Computer

Do we need to catalog the brief records manually? Our suggestion is to leave them as they are, as no one

can guarantee that they will remain stay in the next batch

Record Type No. of Catalog %Full Record 5,998 90%Brief Record 667 10%

Total 6,665 100%

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E-Journal Full Record in HKBU Web OPAC

Single record approach

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E-Journal Brief Record in HKBU Web OPAC

Database title and subset title

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Record Maintenance

Full E-Journal Records Handled by Cataloging and Serial Staff

Computer Generated E-Journal Records Handled by Systems Section regularly Create a new complete list Upload the whole list to Innopac New records are created, old records are overlaid Records with CAT with prior date are deleted by global

function

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Complete WWW E-Journal List

Create a Innopac review list file which contains all the full and brief E-Journal records

Only title field (tag 245) and URL (tag 856) are required

A computer program to convert this file to HTML pages to be published on Library homepage

Feature Collection: a link point to the tag 740 of E-Journal records in Web OPAC

http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/lib/ejours/index.html

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Complete WWW E-Journal List on HKBU Homepage

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BU Library Subscribed E-Journal Title Statistics

As of this writing, the BU Library has a total of 8,825 E-Journal records

87.8% of the E-Journal records come from three large index/abstract databases: AU, EbscoHost and PQD

It means if you can save your time in processing the E-Journal from large databases, it certainly will reduce an enormous amount of work

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Working Time

Comparing with the traditional manual approach in handling E-Journal (see p. 13), the processing time of new approach is:

Works Time (min.)Download Record from various databases 15 Computer Program to Create Catalog Records 30 Upload Records to Innopac 40 Create Complete E-Journal List on Library Homepage 15

Total 100

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Conclusion (1)

The lessons we learn from this project: Data sharing:

Data created by one section can be shared and used by other sections

In order to share the data, they must be created in pre-defined and systematic structure

Data creation works by various sections must be clearly stated Never waste valuable labor cost in creating:

redundant data; and unstable data

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Conclusion (2)

The approach is capable of handling the other database subsets from EhscoHost and PQD

With a slight enhancement, it can develop to accept different types of records from different databases as long as the title lists are stored in delimited format

We will use the same approach to create some 2,000 catalog records for NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) Working Paper Series

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Acknowledgement

Last but not the least, special thanks are due to the following colleagues, without their constructive inputs, supports, and co-operation, it would be impossible to complete the whole project in such a tight schedule:

Mrs.. Shirley Leung, University Librarian

Mr. Stephen Dingler, Cataloging Librarian

Ms. Wing Yan Woo, Acquisition Librarian

Mr. Paul Lee, Reference Librarian

Mr. David Chung, Cataloging Section

Mr. Wing Chung Yip, Acquisitions Section

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