Rehabilitating Killer Serials

Abstract

Cornell University Library (CUL) has developed a largely automated method for providing title-level catalog access to electronic journals made available through aggregator packages. CUL’s technique for automated e-journal record creation and maintenance relies largely on the conversion of externally supplied metadata into streamlined, abbreviated-level MARC records. Unlike the Cooperative Online Serials Cataloging Program's recently implemented “aggregator-neutral” approach to e-journal cataloging, CUL’s method involves the creation of a separate bibliographic record for each version of an e-journal title in order to facilitate automated record maintenance. An indexed local field indicates the aggregation to which each title belongs and enables machine manipulation of all the records associated with a specific aggregation. Information encoded in another locally defined field facilitates the identification of all of the library’s e-journal titles and allows for the automatic generation of a Web-based title list of e-journals.CUL’s approach to providing title-level catalog access to its e-journal aggregations involves a number of tradeoffs in which some elements of traditional bibliographic description(such as subject headings and linking fields) are sacrificed in the interest of timeliness and affordability. URLs and holdings information are updated on a regular basis by use of automated methods that save on staff costs.