How Journal Titles Are Maintained in UC-eLinks

1. Ex Libris discovers the new titles and title changes in a variety of ways, such as through periodic tape loads from full text producers, data feed from the ISSN registry, the CONSER database (the set of serial records input/created or otherwise introduced to the OCLC database authenticated by CONSER members), and from user feedback.



2. Every month, Ex Libris sends Margery Tibbetts, the CDL UC-eLinks Project Manager, a KnowledgeBase (KB) Update, which includes software updates and database updates. (The KnowledgeBase is the behind-the-scenes database of journal titles and databases used for University of California linking.)



3. The KB Update is applied by CDL to all of the campus instances or versions generally during the second week of the month. The update process adds new portfolios (journal titles), new targets (full text vendors) and new sources (database vendors), but does not activate them. The update process also deletes titles and modifies coverage information.


4. For aggregator databases in which we license all of the titles, such as Expanded Academic ASAP, ABI/INFORM Global and Literature Online (LION), CDL has instructed the update process to automatically activate any new titles.


5. CDL activates/deactivates portfolios when we receive the information from the Shared Cataloging Program (SCP). The SCP stream is also used to update the Directory of CDL-licensed Content. If a new provider is added, CDL generally does not wait for SCP, but instead uses the title list from the vendor to activate the new target and list of titles, after the coverage is verified at UCSD. CDL also makes changes to the database based on feedback from the campus librarians and end users.


6. At the campus level, the UC-eLinks liaisons activate/deactivate portfolios in their own campus instances. They do this for the titles licensed by the campus that are not part of a 10-campus agreement. Each campus may have a different workflow from acquisitions/cataloging to UC-eLinks.


7. Occasionally the UC-eLinks liaisons and CDL staff have to wait to activate a title until Ex Libris has added it to the global database (KnowledgeBase). CDL cannot add titles to the global database; however, if a title is already in the database, CDL can add it to a target where it previously did not exist. For example, if the journal title Pediatrics was activated in HighWire Press but was also available (and perhaps sooner) via Expanded Academic ASAP, CDL can add and activate the title in the Expanded Academic ASAP target.


8. The original data load for UC-eLinks came from the Melvyl Catalog links database, which had a loose relationship with SCP. UC-eLinks and SCP are not synchronized at the moment. The CDL is in the process of updating all of the targets (except the aggregators) in the CDL instance of UC-eLinks, using title lists provided by SCP staff.