Migrating link resolvers didnât seem that big a deal until discovering data was coming from 3 sources simultaneously! These slides display the challenges encountered in the transition from 2 link resolvers to 1, exposing glitches, re-verification of access, and why the change ended up being worth it. This was originally presented at the Electronic Resources & Libraries 2017 conference in Austin, Texas.
The adventure of too much data: migrating from SFX to Ebsco's Full Text Finder
1. The Adventure of Too Much Data:
Migrating from SFX to Ebscoâs Full Text Finder
Amy Castillo
Periodicals & Electronic Resources Librarian
Tarleton State University - Dick Smith Library
Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) 2017 Conference
April 5, 2017 | Austin, Texas
2. The case
Migrate from one vendorâs link resolver/A-Z list
platform (Ex Librisâ SFX) to anotherâs (Ebscoâs Full
Text Finder) with as little âdamageâ as possible
e.g. lost holdings, dropped access points,
downtime for patronâs use, etc.
3. The plan
Go from start to finish in about
6 monthsâ time.
We were fortunate that we had
several months to run both link
resolvers simultaneously
before SFX was shut off.
4. What actually happened
â I imported holdings from SFX (excluding all
A&I resources since FTF does not display
those)
â I received a number of error reports of
titles that could not be imported. This
was more or less expected.
â Ebsco imported holdings selected in their
previous link resolver product, Linksource/A-
Z which I regrettably forgot about
â Ebsco also imported titles from Ebsconet
orders/EJS - unfortunately there were
glitches that came along with this
Forgot!
Glitches!
Error
Reports!
5. Sorting it out & playing detective
âą Turned off the order integration feature for 2 reasons
o To stop any further glitches from occurring which had caused all of the titles pulled from
Ebsconet/EJS to display âNo Accessâ as the coverage date - patronâs could see this!
o To stop interference of conflicting information of pending or old orders that were overriding my
own changes
âą Used the âDownload Holdingsâ feature in FTF Holdings Management to pull
reports that helped find affected titles - including Hidden titles
âą Due to titles that could not be imported from the SFX holdings list (error reports),
needed to gather entitlement lists & coverage dates directly from publishers siteâs
to make sure I selected the appropriate titles & coverage information
âą Created lots of spreadsheets to keep this and other aspects of the migration as
organized as possible
11. Something I still
donât like...
When in a title record there is the
ability to do Package-level changes
such as selecting and removing the
entire package.
While a warning box does come up
when deselecting something (for both
title & package) it just doesnât make
sense to be able to have the package-
level functions at the title level.
I accidentally de-selected an entire
package this way and lost all
changes/selections/coverage
information with no ability to recover
the information from either my end or
Ebscoâs endâŠ.
16. Integrated with
EDS
We chose to integrate Full
Text Finder into EDS
which allows patrons to
search within publications
and take advantge of
EDSâs A&I resources.
Branding, colors, & logos
from EDS profile are
applied to the Full Text
Finder/Publication Finder
interface as well.
18. Lessons learned & some
advice
o Find out first where the data that
will be imported from and
whether you can get a copy of
the data first in case it needs to
be reviewed and/or exported
back out.
o Cover yourself by periodically
downloading all holdings.
o If possible, allow for overlap time
between migrating systems https://goo.gl/images/rwutCO
19. The good things
â We got through it! Holdings are more
accurate as a result & I receive less
notices of incorrect information to fix
from fellow library staff or patrons.
â A quick survey of Tarleton library staff
showed that on average using Full Text
Finder is as easy or easier to use than
our former link resolver.
â All respondents (11) said yes when
asked if having Full Text Finder
integrated with our Discovery system is
helpful.
â Shout out to Carol Seiler, our Ebsco
account manager, who helped us
through the migration and put us in
touch with her colleagues to resolve
technical issues.
https://goo.gl/images/rEsYDH
Thereâs a lot to a migration but today Iâll be talking more about the back end of the Full Text Finder system (Holdings Management). I should point out, thereâs no villains in this story. There were some unintended consequences which is where the âtoo much dataâ came from. On the library side - it was between myself and my supervisor, the Assistant Director of Collection Management who is also the Ebsco/EDS admin, to get this migration completed.
It actually took us 8 months but considering all that had to get cleaned it could have been a lot worse. What I expected (which Iâm not sure you can see here on my migration plan) was to simply import journals from SFX. This, unfortunately, was not the case.
The order integration kept âhidingâ pending orders or de-selecting them even after I had verified access to them.
Weâre no stranger to extensive spreadsheets. Whatever it takes to keep yourself organized and sane.
Just want to point out a few things about Holdings Management so if youâre planning on migrating to Full Text Finder youâre aware of what to look out for.
Links
Notes
Upload
Download
Holdings Management interface is fairly easy to navigate and see quickly packages and titles that are Selected or Not Selected. In this screen I searched for all Springer packages that we currently have Selected.
Please make note of the Links tab, Iâll get to that in a few moments. This tab shows when youâre in packages, titles, and vendors.
I lost about 2,500 selections on a package I was working to clean up. I had to start again from scratch which took about 3 months to get it fixed up and accurate..
This is important. I did not realize until after launching that none of our Elsevier titles were linked so when using the link resolver function (Citation Finder or OpenURL buttons on databases/EDS) they would not show the available holdings. Double check selected Packages to make sure they are linked to the appropriate Links from this page. You can also add links to your ILL request form and library catalog.
The holdings report allows you to do many things like sort & filter to locate odd holdings information and subject information for program reviews. Due to that situation with losing information from accidentally selecting the wrong button I now download holdings periodically (about 1 time per month) and after any major updates.
Publication Finder is the name Ebsco gave to the patron interface; however, we chose to just call it Full Text Finder across the board.
If you choose to have Full Text Finder integrated within EDS just know that it falls within the EDS profile so branding (colors, logos, navigation bars) match across the systems.
Both for migrating any link resolver/A-Z list and for those considering Full Text Finder.