In response to:
On the other hand with local holdings of print journals, I guess missing
issues are going to be slighly more common, and perhaps this increases
the need to deal with easily stating exceptions, missing issues, etc.
But I think there are some questions to be answered here about value for
money.
[Frances McNamara]
[Frances McNamara] Just to keep this discussion grounded I would like to
give an example. I have a friend who went back to school to do a PhD at
a major Ivy League institution. Last spring she was frantic when she
could not get her hands on a specific article which was the crucial
article for the paper she was writing. That volume or issue was
missing. Not available online either. We had it here and I scanned it
in and sent it to her (she could have gotten it through ILL to us or
another institution, but I just did a shortcut of that).
The very precise information about missing issues and volumes is really
needed by people doing this kind of research and it is hugely
frustrating for them to know the article exists and to be unable to get
their hands on it.
When looking at value for money it is a good idea to keep this in mind.
Academic research libraries exist to support this kind of research.
It might still be true that something not as specific would be helpful
for "machine parsable" holdings. At some point you need to know what is
really in your inventory, however.
Frances McNamara
University of Chicago
Received on Fri Sep 14 2007 - 06:55:15 EDT