EDINA newsline
September 2008: Volume 13 Issue 3
SUNCAT, the national Serials Union Catalogue, has seen two recent enhancements to its interface.
Holdings list: A list of the libraries holding each title now displays on the results screen. This development enables users to see at a glance which libraries hold a title, helping them to identify and filter records of interest more quickly. The full record display continues to contain more detailed location and holdings information.
Open URL linking: To aid SUNCAT users' journey from the discovery of relevant journals to the delivery of full-text articles, a Find a Copy button has been introduced to the full record display.
The button leads users to their local OpenURL resolver and hence to options for full-text access, depending on their entitlement, or to alternatives such as Inter-Library loan services at their local institution.
Users searching SUNCAT within their institution's IP range should automatically be presented with the institution's own resolver button, e.g. SFX. To benefit from this functionality, librarians need to register their resolver with the OpenURL Router at the address below.
SUNCAT has recently released a second parallel downloading service to complement the initial pilot service introduced last year.
Contributing Libraries can continue to access the CONSER-only records with their existing connection and configuration, but may now replace this, or add a second connection to the new service, which contains both CONSER and ISSN records and will gradually expand to include Contributing Libraries' MARC records.
The CONSER-only database will be maintained to provide libraries with quick and easy access to these high-quality records, with the second service providing a more comprehensive coverage of records.
CONSER is the cooperative online serials cataloguing programme coordinated by the US Library of Congress. There are over one million high-quality CONSER records on SUNCAT, with particularly strong coverage of current science, technology and medicine (STM) titles.
Each ISSN assigned to a serial publication is registered in the ISSN Register and, with over one million ISSN numbers assigned, this database is one of the most comprehensive and authoritative sources for the identification of serial publications world-wide.
The facility is only available to SUNCAT Contributing Libraries. The username and password, required to set up the connection, are the same as those used for the pilot service: these have already been sent to the primary SUNCAT contact in each Contributing Library.
If you need a reminder of your username/password, experience any problems setting up or using the service or have comments about the service please contact the EDINA helpdesk at edina@ed.ac.uk.
There is no charge for these services, Contributing Libraries can simply visit http://www.suncat.ac.uk/support/z-target-auth.shtml for details on how to set up the Z39.50 connection and start downloading records.