Electronic Journals Workflow Template

This document outlines steps for acquiring and managing online journals. It is intended for specific unit workflows, and thus may not fully cover those products that are managed at the vendor level centrally - for example, journal packages that are managed by Kimberly Parker, Head, Electronic Collections for YUL. Units will still want to consider workflow issues for individual journals supplied by these vendors. A separate document covers the more general workflow for electronic resources.

{XXX will provide coordination, guidance, and continuing education to assist departmental staff in the activities detailed here:
serve as a point person for staff about questions/problems with any of the steps on this document
serve as a liaison for communication from K. Parker or colleagues in other units about local or shared e-journals
develop better ways to manage and communicate about e-journals
ensure quality access to e-journals, especially on computers in the local library(ies)}

Comment: Each unit must decide whether they intend to assign a point person for their department that plays the above role. If such a person is not assigned, K. Parker will provide general assistance where possible. If unit maintains a departmental ejournals list and desires to designate a person in the unit to interact directly with the master ejournals database, this can be arranged after a period of training and review. The below is written as if such has not (yet) been arranged.

Resources:
Good overview documents:

For all of the below, it is useful to remember that if a journal is not the first title considered from a particular publisher or "e-printer", there is likely to be a "vendor contact" amongst the larger library staff who can assist at various points of the process, particularly in communication with the vendor, past history of license or registration issues, etc. In addition, information about a publisher or interface under consideration by some other unit can be found on the Publisher Status webpage.

For each instance of XXX below, choices include a single person for unit, a subject specific staff member, committee, someone outside your unit, or another option. Some choices may seem more relevant than others for a particular journal or publisher or type of action. Varying levels of staff may be appropriate for different actions.

Announcements of new journals/new publishers online:
1. Funneled to: XXX. Consider types of resources that may need directing in different ways (cross-subject journal vs. specific subject journal)
  --Arrives via: email to numerous staff, K. Parker or other central avenues (e.g. NERL deals, central serial agent or publisher communications), reader requests, cross-departmental or selector communications, publisher/interface publicity.
2. Decide redistribution procedure for department when announcements sent appropriately to a single person for unit or to "wrong" person.
3. Decide procedure for forwarding on journals relevant to other disciplines or of multi-disciplinary nature. Recommendation is that communication takes place on select-l for journals of very general interest.
4. New package information, wherein unit may have a stake in the package decision is sent to: XXX (individual or committee) who coordinates department's examination of interest, options, and understanding of overall institutional implications of the proffered package.
Communication among staff (and others, such as curators and readers, if appropriate) about journal:
1. Initiated by XXX.
2. Decide if this is different for internal department communications vs. external department communications
3. Decide how far XXX carries discussion and whether other staff members take over at any particular designated points. (e.g. If initial communication determines no other subject/discipline interest in journal or journal set then XXX carries on. Or if initial communication determines there is other subject/discipline interest in product, then some other person/committee takes over.)
4. Consider suggesting expensive journal sets as consortial deals. XXX informs K. Parker for NERL polling.
5. Decide whether unit desires to have some standard "filters" in place to minimize unnecessary decision making. e.g. Any title unit is getting in print will be activated electronically if there are no other barriers (license problems, interface concerns, price over $yyy or zzz% more than print cost.
6. Consider suggesting cross-disciplinary journals or packages to CoDGeR for potential central funding.

--Decision point--: Assumption is made at this point that enough interest in the journal or journal set has been determined to warrant further action. If not - unit must decide whether it wishes to keep records of negative decisions and who will record such where if so.

Trial activations:
1. Done by XXX in communication with vendor. Note: with journals, if there are other titles available via the same publisher/interface, there is no need to conduct a trial. If this is the first title available from a publisher and especially if a large set of titles is being considered, then a trial may be appropriate.
  --If a trial requires a license, request license for review or send Yale generic license (follow license review, below).
  -- For journals, often there is a "freely available period" when title is first offered online. While not a requested trial, this freely available period should be treated like a trial for local activities, if we are taking advantage of it.
2. XXX sends information to K. Parker about trial availability of journal title(s) or publisher package. [Note: this can be accomplished by entering information into the ejournals web entry.] End date of availability needs to be provided. E-Collections staff will enter into ejournals database and title(s) will automatically show up on Front Door journals list; XXX adds to departmental specific journals list if one exists.
3. XXX announces the trial(s) to YULIB-L (for public trials). For journals, an announcement is only really relevant for major sets of journals, or a major title.
4. XXX (as appropriate) advertises to academic departments and sends information to local newsletter producer (again if the title(s) are significant enough to warrant this effort.)
5. For a Front Door News notice of the trial of a major set of journals, notify Public Interfaces Committee (PIC) chair and/or local website news producer.

Note: Steps 4 and 5 should be undertaken simultaneously. A decision not to order may occur either because the journal is not sufficiently of interest or the license cannot be successfully negotiated.

Workflow splits here into "I" case - a few new journal titles being considered for a publisher or interface that is already established for YUL; and "II" case - a new publisher/interface being considered, usually for more than one or two titles.