Re: Link resolvers as loosely coupled systems for holdings?

I accept and agree with the points Ross makes below, but I'm not totally
convinced that this is not a reason to move forward.

I think that one overwhelming area of agreement from this thread is that
we would significantly benefit from machine parsable holdings
statements. So, I'd be interested to know:

Is there any uniformity to how existing commerical link resolvers handle
this? Do they (as with SFX) generally work on a broad brush approach or
do any of them make serious attempts to tackle the issues (excuse the
pun) of missing issues and extra supplements etc. (and how much detail
is required in a holdings statement?) Are there any standards either
inside or outside the library sphere that we should be looking at?
(Anyone familiar with ONIX for Serials - does any of this cover this
area?)

Although I accept the point that moving from MFHD to a vendor specific
format for holdings doesn't initially seem like a brilliant idea, I'd
point out that many libraries use the records from SFX to populate their
library catalogue by converting between the SFX internal format for bib
data and MARC21 - I don't want to rehash arguments about MARC here, but
our systems don't necessarily store data in that format, they just allow
input and output it in that format. (of course, Link resolvers were
using the OpenURL before it became a 'standard')

I suppose what I'm looking for is a way of moving forward locally
towards some aspects of an NGC. Perhaps this is for another thread - but
I'm in a position where I can make or influence decisions, and have some
resources at my disposal. I want to find ways of using these resources
to move us forward, instead of continuing to invest them into creating
(for example) even more non machine readable holdings statements. I
think this probably does deserve another thread - I'll have a think and
post something later.

Owen


-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Ross Singer
Sent: 11 September 2007 17:02
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Link resolvers as loosely coupled systems for
holdings?

On 9/11/07, Stephens, Owen <o.stephens_at_imperial.ac.uk> wrote:
> If we put the monograph issue to one side for a moment. I'm not sure
> that our ILS really has much in the way of work flow for serials. Our
> (i.e. the institution I work for, but I suspect more generally true)
> holdings statements are manually entered, not generated from 'check
in'
> of issues. We could simply stop entering these into the ILS and rather
> enter them into the Link Resolver.
>

Ah, but your link resolver most likely doesn't have a terribly
sophisticated mechanism for dealing with missing issues or extra
supplements or the myriad other eccentricities in serials management.

Or, rather, since you've already stated that you use SFX, in fact I
can say for certain that you don't have a terribly sophisticated
mechanism (although it is a terribly complicated mechanism) for
dealing with these issues via 'thresholds'.  In essence, we'd be
throwing out a non-machine readable "standard" (if you use MFHD, I
guess) for a totally machine readable, vendor-specific "non-standard"
that you wouldn't be able to easily query or export to other systems
since SFX doesn't expose date thresholds in a machine readable fashion
in its API.

I'm not arguing for or against using the link resolver (as we know it)
as our holdings resolver, but /this/ particular solution seems to
raise as many problems as it solves.

-Ross.