Access Problem Solving (digprob)
Reporting Problems with SerialsSolutions Records
How to Report Problems | Background | Identifying SerialsSolutions Records | How Often Data is Updated
How to Report Problems
Any MIT Libraries staff member who finds a problem and wants to report it should email: clients@serialssolutions.com (with a copy to vera-data )
Include the following information:
- the journal name
- ISSN if available
- database name [e.g. LexisNexis or Proquest]
- incorrect data as it is reported
- how that data should be corrected
- any documentation or information to support that correction.
NOTE: As of September 2004, SerialsSolutions is working on a problem report form and will have it available to customers fairly soon.
Background
In the spring of 2004 we added to Vera about 14,000 ejournal titles (as of December 2006, this number is over 25,000) that were formerly hidden in aggregated packages, such as Lexis-Nexis, and whose contents were not included in Vera (but were listed separately as "BELL"). (See http://libraries.mit.edu/aggregators/ for a list of these aggregators.) In order to include these titles in Vera, we load data purchased from SerialsSolutions every other month.
These SerialsSolutions records are therefore different from the others in Vera. We do not have control over the detailed ejournal holdings information that appears in these records, and there are differences in how problems with these records should be handled.
Identifying SerialsSolutions Records
To recognize SerialsSolutions records:
In Public Vera, the word "package" appears after the publisher name for these records.
In Staff Vera, the phrase "Imported from SS, [date]" appears in the brief record.
In Filemaker Pro Vera, the publisher field shows the word "package" after the publisher name, and the mark_set field contains the phrase "Imported from SS, [date]"
How Often Data is Updated
Every other month, we completely replace all the SerialsSolutions records in Vera when we receive new data from them. For this reason, it is not effective to make changes to these records, since the changes will be lost in the next record load. (This is also why the records do not have subjects in Vera.)
If you receive a question about the data in a SS record, here is standard language you can build from in creating your response.
[PLEASE NOTE: questions about access to the aggregated databases should still be handled in the normal manner by the digprob staff. This language is for questions about holdings/coverage for a given journal, or access to a particular article within a title.]Sample response to a query:
Thank you for your report about the [journal name here]. The record for this title was provided to us by SerialsSolutions and therefore includes data that the MIT Libraries did not create and which is not under our control.
SerialsSolutions sends us a new data set listing titles contained in our aggregated databases [see http://libraries.mit.edu/aggregators]. It is not effective to make changes to these Vera records, since we completely replace all the SerialsSolutions records when we receive new data every other month. Many problems will be found by SerialsSolutions and will be corrected when data is reloaded. The next SerialsSolutions data load is expected to take place by [fill in date--Walter Powers may be able to provide an exact date, or as an estimate you can add two months to the last SS import date that appears in the mark_set field for the record].
Meanwhile, we are testing the success and viability of reporting data problems to SerialsSolutions. If you would like to report the problem you've identified, please send email to: clients@serialssolutions.com (Please copy vera-data@mit.edu). Please include the following information: the journal name, ISSN (if available), database name [e.g. LexisNexis or Proquest], incorrect data as it is reported, how that data should be corrected, and any documentation or information to support that correction.
If you have any questions, please contact Kim Maxwell (3-7028 or kmaxwell).