Re: Problem with WebBridge linking from ABC-Clio database

[Bob Duncan <duncanr at mail dot lafayette dot edu>]

At 03:36 PM 10/05/2004 -0400, Mark A. Stoffan wrote:
> I'm hoping other WebBridge libraries can help us out with this one.
>
> A week ago ABC-Clio added OpenURL linking from book review citations in
> their America: History and Life database. Previously the book review
> citations were not OpenURL-enabled. These records do not include an ISSN
> so linking generates inaccurate hits or no results when in fact our
> institutions have access to the full-text online. We have not been able
> to find a viable workaround. Using non-ISSN searching is problematic as
> many full-text databases require the ISSN.
>
> It looks like we can either live with the bad links from the book review
> citations or disable OpenURL searching from this database until the
> vendor corrects the problem. The vendor has told us that ISSN's are not
> included in the current dataset and they have no plans to add them
> before mid-2005.


Do you actually have *bad* links, or just no links at all?  If the absence 
of an ISSN is generating bad links, then you might want to consider adding 
a "HasISSN" data test to the definitions for resources which require an 
ISSN for linking.

If the problem is no (or limited) links, you can always create a resource 
definition to search the library catalog  by title instead of ISSN 
(assuming your journal holdings are in your catalog).  Applying a 
"SIDisABCCLIO" type of data test could limit the links to ABC-CLIO 
databases.  (That's what we've done for now.)

You could also use MatchTITLE instead of MatchISSN then grab the ISSN for a 
title from your coverage data using a secondary lookup ($# at TITLE##@ISSN#$, 
assuming you have both title and ISSN in the coverage data).  But in order 
to apply this method to ABC-CLIO origins only you would have to create 
duplicate resource definitions for those fulltext resources where history 
full text is likely to exist.  And in order to avoid duplicate links for 
the article records in ABC-CLIO you'd have to apply filters to the original 
(non-duplicate) resource definitions so the links don't appear in 
ABC-CLIO.  Not a perfect solution and a bit more work than should be 
necessary, but it's one way to get the the links you want from the records 
for reviews.

Bob Duncan


~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~
Robert E. Duncan
Systems Librarian
David Bishop Skillman Library
Lafayette College
Easton, PA  18042
duncanr at lafayette dot edu
http://www.library.lafayette.edu/