Due to the removal, by publishers,  of e-journals that were once available through our online databases, our catalog had accumulated a large number of  “orphaned” e-journal records.  These titles were previously accessible by way of Ebsco A to Z at the time they were added to our collection, but have since been removed from the A to Z knowledge base primarily due to changes in licensing agreements between publishers and our various vendors.

Until now there had not been an easy way to monitor the removal of titles from Ebsco A to Z,  nor to adjust our holdings to accurately reflect the A to Z data as of a given date. Thanks to some Sirsi API magic and  a series of SQL queries, we are now able to systematically compare our catalog holdings  with the A to Z knowledge base and update our local holdings accordingly.  What does this mean to library users? No more dead e-journal records!  If a journal record exists in our catalog, then it can be accessed through the Todd Library. If the journal has an “electronic” item associated with it, then it is available in at least one of our full-text resources and can be accessed by clicking the “Search for Full Text using Ebsco A to Z” link in the detailed display for that journal.

This initial cleanup resulted in the removal of some 5000 dead e-journal item records from our catalog.