Almost an eJournal Using the Library Catalog for Local Hosting and Management of Electronic Periodicals

Almost an eJournal: Using the Library Catalog for Local
Hosting and Management of Electronic Periodicals
Corey Seeman, M.A.L.S.
Director, Kresge Business Administration Library
Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

ABSTRACT
In 2005, the Kresge Business Administration Library at the University of Michigan acquired a
new electronic periodical for its collection that had to be locally hosted by the library and was
not currently part of any article database. Pressed with a need to present this resource to users in
a way that would facilitate and promote use, a plan was developed to create individual records
for each issue of this periodical and place them into the library’s public catalog. The article
describes the rationale for local hosting of electronic resources, licensing considerations, creating
search and discovery opportunities for these items, the creation of library catalog records for the
issues, workflow methods and the promotion for this material to the Ross School community.
Also discussed will be the ways that this program will be expanded to showcase other resources
for the library community.

INTRODUCTION
Special libraries purchase many unique periodicals that are not typically included in the
traditional indices that our patrons use. This reflects the narrow focus of the resources that are
required by our patrons and customers. While most of our electronic resources are hosted by our
publishers and we provide access via IP authentication, many publishers who are not catering to
the library market do not have the technical means of making resources available via IP. For
these other electronic resources, the library is required to find a way to host the resources
electronically. While these are important resources, the lack of an easy way to search them
drives down potential usage by our patrons. The Kresge Business Administration Library of the
Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan has been presented this problem with a
large variety of resources that we purchase for our patrons. While we have long been working
with vendors on the local hosting of electronic resources (primarily PDFs that we could
download centrally from a site), we have not had a process to truly promote these resources to

our community as a whole.
In 2006, the Kresge Business Administration Library started a pilot program to better manage
and describe these types of resources for our patrons. The library developed a procedure to
manage periodicals electronically hosted by the Library by creating records in the library catalog
on an issue by issue basis. By adding issue table of contents information to these records, we
allow our patrons to search via keyword rather than select from a list of issues. Additionally, this


will also allow us to adopt this method for other resources without having to create additional
databases for patrons to search. This procedure was established for the journal Medical Industry
Intelligence (MII) (Millennium Research Group, 2005- ) that provides excellent coverage of the
medical device industry.

ABOUT THE KRESGE BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION LIBRARY
The Kresge Business Administration Library is an independent library at the University of
Michigan. Instead of reporting to the University Libraries, the Kresge Library reports to and
receives funding from the Ross School of Business, mirroring the reporting structure of most law
libraries. A leading business school, Ross appears in the top ten of three major rankings,
including number 1 in the 2006 Wall Street Journal among MBA level schools1. While we are
independent, we still participate in many University Libraries purchases by contributing funds
when the resources have a component that is related to business or the social sciences.
Additionally, we purchase some electronic resources that are available to the entire University of
Michigan community, including our regional campuses at Dearborn and Flint. The decision to
make resources available to the broader University community (be it just the Ann Arbor campus
or the whole system) often comes down to money.
By virtue of our independence, we have been able to purchase electronic resources that are
specialized and expensive, but make them just available to the students, faculty and staff at the
Ross School of Business. As of Fall 2006, there are approximately 3100 students at the Ross
School (BBAs, MBAs, Evening MBAs, Global MBAs, Executive MBAs, Ph.Ds, and Masters of
Accounting Students) and an additional 500 faculty and staff. This population of 3600 is far less

than the comparable population of the University’s main campus (approximately 39,000 plus
faculty and staff) or the system-wide count (approximately 49,000 plus faculty and staff). For
some vendors, they often have a greater comfort level in making resources available just to the
far smaller set of the Ross School of Business. This is especially true of vendors who are first
working with the academic community.

NEED FOR DIVERSE AND SPECIALIZED RESOURCES
Over the years, the Kresge Library has met the diverse needs of the Ross School of Business
community by acquiring print and electronic resources to support the general business
curriculum and research. What we have noticed at the library, as have many of our colleagues at
other business libraries, is that many of our requests seek assistance in finding granular
information that is not readily available in our larger or more general business resources. At the
Kresge Library, we are working with many students who are seeking information on the medical
device and pharmaceutical industries that are not readily available in our existing resources. To
this end, we have expanded our collection to include resources that specifically address these
industries that many of our students are working on. And in large part, these key subject areas
are very important among the companies that sponsor our Action Based Learning programs, such
as MAP, which is the central academic approach at the Ross School.
MAP (Multidisciplinary Action Projects) is the cornerstone of the school’s Action Based
Learning approach that brings MBA students, at the end of their first year, together in teams to


work with a company or an organization (including many non-profits) to examine a particular
issue, problem or opportunity. It is typically at this point during the first year that the librarians
make their strongest connections with the students. While these teams work on projects that
span the scope of industries, services and organizations, many deal specifically with the Medical
Device industry. While there is no shortage of resources (including Market Reports) on the
industry, they are quite expensive and often fail to provide the students with the type of news and
information that they need. Furthermore, many of the specific resources that the students want
are not part of any established database, making the acquisition and dissemination to the school

more challenging.
One such resource was identified in 2005 as serving a great potential niche for the school. A new
journal called Medical Industry Intelligence (MII) from Millennium Research Group2 of Toronto,
Ontario appeared to be a great new resource that would help our students working with medical
technology to better understand that market. So with that, we embarked upon negotiations with
the vendor for access to this resource for the students, faculty and staff of the Ross School of
Business. For this title, the vendor did not provide IP access to the title. So from the beginning,
we viewed this resource as one that we would have to locally host at the library.
We had a history of local hosting of electronic content at the Kresge Library, with similar
resources that did not have IP access or a public face that could be shared with the entire school.
However, what traditionally was done was seemingly less than ideal. Our practice for managing
these resources as established, assumed that you knew what you where looking for in the title or
other fields in the title record. The Library had similar arrangements with the National Real
Estate Index and created a cataloging record for the title as a whole.3 While this allowed patrons
to go to a webpage and download particular reports and issues (if they could authenticate as a
member of the Ross School of Business), the full scope of the resources there were not apparent
in the catalog. There were Metro Market Facts for Detroit and New York from 2001 to the
present, general real estate market conditions and city by city reports for 40 of the largest
markets in the country. Typically, the webpage that a patron would go to would include just a
series of links to the issue numbers or report titles. So if you knew what you were looking for,
then you could find it quite easily. If you did not know what you were looking for, then you
would very well not find it. Using the example above, a search for real estate in cities like San
Antonio would not yield any hits in the catalog. This was viewed rightly, as a critical problem of
the setup. With the Medical Industry Intelligence, we had potentially greater issues with getting
users to this resource. Since this journal was new and not indexed anywhere, we sought a more
dynamic and user-focused solution.
Besides the necessity of local hosting these resources, there were a number of benefits from the
library providing the local hosting of electronic resources, despite the added work involved by
the library. With local hosting, you had archival protection and rights to these documents. This
is important for a research library interested in the long-term retention of information. With

some traditional resources, access ends at the time a subscription is not renewed. Also with local
hosting, there are virtually no broken link problems since you control the location of the file. It
is even possible that these methods could be used for non-locally hosted resources, but are
particularly relevant for your patrons. While these might be available via Google or another


search engine, you can provide added significance to the resource by adding it to your website or
catalog.

LICENSING CONSIDERATIONS
In acquiring resources that need to be locally hosted, it is important that the vendor and the
library are in agreement as to what the rights will be for access and use. This maybe something
that is clarified in a license agreement or outlined in a letter between the vendor and the library.
A clear understanding is best for both sides. Some vendors offer different pricing for resourses
that are placed on the company’s or organization’s intranet vs. a single PDF use. But most
vendors do not offer specific pricing for resources that will be shared locally vs. those that are
intended for one user. When locally hosting electronic content, our goal is to make it available to
the Ross Community. However, we might have an opportunity to offer it to walk-in users, but
this is done on a case by case basis. In the past, this essentially has been done, but not keeping
the material in its native electronic format. Upon buying electronic report or title, we would
print up the document, bind it, catalog it, and place it as part of the collection. Keeping the
resource in electronic format allows us to encourage the broadest use of the resource among the
school’s students, faculty and staff.
When working with resources that we want to make available via locally hosting, it is imperative
that you receive confirmation from the vendor that this is acceptable. If a license agreement is
involved, make sure that this procedure is explicitly stated. During the discussion with the
vendor, it is important also that they understand the scope of the users. This is of a particular
interest for a library like Kresge, an independent library at the University of Michigan, but one
that has a public service mission. To this end, access to the resource could any of these
possibilities:

• Which populations can access the resource? For Kresge, this would include:
o Ross School Only - This is possible because the Ross School has a separate
computing services department and has the ability to limit access just to current
students, faculty and staff of the business school. This is a useful and affordable
way to expand resources by only providing it to the 3600 total people at the Ross
School vs. the 50,000 across the entire Ann Arbor campus.
o Ann Arbor Campus only of the University of Michigan
o All University of Michigan (Ann Arbor along with regional campuses at Dearborn
and Flint)
• Other considerations include:
o Electronic access to walk-in users - this is a particular issue for public academic
libraries.
o Can print copies be made available to non-local populations?
o Can the resources be used for Inter-library loan?
In working with vendors, it is important to clarify what the bounds of the agreement are and that
the technology is in place to see that it can be supported. Our agreement included some elements
that we could not easily manage in the electronic environment. University access was allowed as
view only, without printing. Since this was harder to accomplish, we decided that we would just
offer the print edition of these titles in the library to patrons not with the Ross School.


CREATING SEARCH AND DISCOVERY OPPORTUNITIES
Having secured the rights to maintain these resources on our local intranet, we sought out the
best way to make this available to our customers. Our ability to provide this function is in large
part because of our collaborative working relationship with the Ross School’s Computing
Services Department. Like the library, the Computing Services Department at Ross is
independent from the rest of the University. This allows the Kresge Library to have web-hosting
and authentication that is unique to the Ross Community. In turn, it allows us to offer vendors
the opportunity for us to host resources on our web-space that is limited to the Ross Community
only. We have been able to offer this to a number of vendors where direct access to the

electronic content is not easily managed for a library, especially where there is one password for
an entire library to share.
While we use staff resources for hosting and managing these resources, the benefits to this type
of system are numerous. First, we are provided with archival access since we are hosting the
files. Second, our patrons do not have to re-login to the sites with the passwords that they have
provided. Third, we are not limited to single users being able to login at once. Fourth, we can
integrate these resources more effectively with the collection as a whole. Our stand alone
library catalog4 gives us the ability to fine tune our resources to meet the needs just of our
patrons.
While we have had a number of resources that we were providing local hosting for, we did not
do a great job of promoting the use of these items. As mentioned before with the National Real
Estate Index, many of the resources were stored on static web pages that were updated when new
content was available. It was decided that we should find a new approach to local hosting of
electronic content to make the resources easier to find and therefore more readily used. There
were discussions about many different platforms to use to host electronic content. Blogs are very
useful for sharing data and can be used effectively for any search driven content. While we tend
to think about blogs in very limited fashion, they are an effective and easy means of sharing
information and resources with others. I have been using blogs for sharing information about
non-profit organizations among others5. While this would have been attractive in many areas, it
would have represented, for our customers, yet another place to search for content. In this day
and age of ever increasing silos, it is important that we try to consolidate and coordinate
whenever possible.
Additionally, we wanted to look at the different ways that people find materials for their
research. This is particularly true of the library catalog and many of our more conventional
databases. If one knows what to look for, then he or she can search easily by author, title, or
ISSN in a tool like the library catalog. However, when a patron does not know what to look for,
then their goal is often to enter a keyword or search term and see what is found. With our
changing database environment, we have different resources that search different parts of the
data. Library catalogs are limited to searching Metadata that is entered into the MARC Record.
Many other databases allow for full text searching, which brings up more hits, but often ones that

are not exactly what the patron wants. Further complicating matters for this particular title was
the fact that it was a relatively unknown in the marketplace. MII was not yet included in any


database index and did not even have an ISSN. While many users routinely search databases and
then find the full text via a link resolver or integrated full text, that option would not be available
for this particular title since it was very specialized and not yet included in the major abstracting
and indexing services. This would also be true for many comparable specialized titles that
libraries, certain special libraries, would want to have in their collection. If the title of this
journal is known to the librarians, but not to the patrons, and there is no easy way for these issues
to be found by patrons, we are almost guaranteeing that it will not be used.
As with the collections at many special libraries, librarians are challenged with describing
material in such a manner that the narrow focus of a title does not diminish its ability to be found
by the patrons. These titles are not readily found in databases such as ABI/Inform, Business
Source Complete, LexisNexis, etc., but are still very important to the users. Our challenge then
was to come up with a means to allow our patrons to find these titles, without needing to know
about this resource ahead of time. It needed to be accessible in a manner that would allow them
to be easily discovered by our students and by our faculty. From an administrative or collection
development point of view, it is also very important that these resources be used to meet the
needs of the students working in these areas.
With this in mind, we decided to take a different tact in describing and hosting the issues of this
periodical. The guiding principals were as follows:
 Ensure that our patrons can easily search for issues that might be appropriate for their
research.
 Ensure that our patrons can easily obtain the issues that are relevant to their research.
 Ensure that our patrons could easily find out about new issues.
 Ensure that our patrons did not have to go to yet another new database for searching in
this journal.
 Integration into the existing resources of the library (no new silos)
While there were many options for this, we decided in the end to create a system where each

issue of this title had a unique entry in our library catalog. We decided that it would make the
resources easier to use and find if we created a separate catalog or each issue, something that
would normally be reserved to a check-in box. If would allow us to approach this work with
greater flexibility to meet the needs of our students. The key factor in these records is the
transcription of the table of contents into the MARC record. By virtue of having the contents in
the MARC 505 Notes field, it would be included in our keyword index. And if it worked, we
could follow this approach and do this also for other titles and stand along reports that we are
getting in electronic format. For these types of unconventional resources, we are very happy that
we have our own library system and can enter these resources as we see fit.

CREATION OF ISSUE-LEVEL RECORDS IN OUR LIBRARY CATALOG
In creating the scheme for how we would describe these items, we looked at other MARC
records for electronic resources and made some adjustments to reflect the goals we were trying
to accomplish. From the outset, we were not looking to create the ultimate catalog records, but
something that could easily be applied from one issue to the next and provide the level of access
that we hope to get. Furthermore, we wanted to exploit the features in our library catalog


(Millennium from Innovative Interfaces, Inc.) that would allow for easy searching and retrieval
by our patrons.

Record Structure for the Issue Record
This is the sample record that we used for one issue of the Medical Industry Intelligence
(November 2005). For the public display, please see Figure 1. Please note that I have included
the initial link to the “master record” (listed as a MARC 856 field) that is listed as OLD. The
new link goes to the Medical Industry Intelligence launch page. This is a change that we made in
April 2007 as the content expanded for this title.
TITLE

245_0 Medical Industry Intelligence |f (Vol. 1, no. 9, November ,

2005)|h[electronic resource]
PUB. INFO. 260
Toronto, Ont. : |bMillennium Research Group, |c2005DESCRIPT 310
Ten issues per year
NOTE
505
Table of Contents: Medical Device Outsourcing: Lowering the bottom
line, p. 4; Image Guided Surgery: Directing orthopedic market growth, p.
8; Bone Graft Substitutes: Augmenting revenue in the dental implant
market, p. 10; Endeavor III: Expected outcome, mixed reaction, p. 12;
Technology News, p. 14; Corporate News, p. 21.
NOTE
500
Title from cover
NOTE
506
Restricted to Ross School of Business (University of Michigan)
constituents only
NOTE
538
Application/pdf|iRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader.
SUBJECT
650_0 Medical instruments and apparatus industry |v Periodicals
SUBJECT
650_0 Medical Technology |v Periodicals
SUBJECT
650_0 Medical innovations |v Periodicals
ALT AUTHOR
71020 Millennium Research Group (Toronto, Ont.)
MARC

856
|u all issues (OLD)
MARC
856
|u Main Medical
Industry Intelligence Resource Page (NEW)
LIB. HAS
866_0 v.1 (2005)LIB. HAS
866
Print version available in Kresge Library Periodicals.
MARC
962
000:000:URL:b243791:000254:0:0:0:0:0:0|tVol. 1, no. 9, November,
2005|vn|u />
Some key aspects of this record
First, the MARC coding that we have used to create these records has been developed through
cooperation from reference librarians and catalogers to ensure that it matches to the catalog as a
whole and allows patrons to retrieve the data more easily. The particular MARC fields used in
the record are as follows:
• 245 Title field. In this field, we record the date of the particular issue in the subfield f as
follows: “|f (Vol. 1, no. 9, November , 2005)”. This allows for easy identification, display
and searching. Additionally, in 2007, the title changed to four different quarterly


•

•
•
•

•

publications. So we just changed the title to the new issues, but left much of the existing
information the same.
505 Notes field. This is transcribed from the issue and entered without change. By
virtue of having this field in the record, then all of these terms were part of the keyword
index. We made a conscious decision not to add issue specific subject headings to the
records to make this process quick for the library staff. This way, we would rely on the
keyword indexing of the system, which is by far and away the most commonly used
search by our patrons. The article titles seemed to also be clearly related to the subject
matter, so this allowed us not to require additional access terms.
506 Notes field. Describes the limited access to Ross School of Business Only.
650 Subject fields. As mentioned above, we have decided not to change the subject
headings for each issue. So these are not updated on an issue by issue basis. This will be
expanded for each of the new quarterly publications (CardiovascularIQ, ImagingIQ, etc.)
710 Alt Author field. Using this field to enter information about the Millennium
Research Group, the publishers of the periodical. Many students will look to particular
market research publishers for additional titles and may know the firm’s name without
knowing the particular reports they produce. This is also the single term that pulls all
these resources together, including white papers that we had access to on the Medical
Device Industry.
866 Lib. Has field. Used to describe that the print version is available in the library. This
is the version that can be used by the general public.

Second, the full text version of the file is located in the MARC 962 field. This is the locally
defined field for the Millennium Media Manager. It displays the link to the patrons within the
record to the full text. The URL for the full text shows the path for the resource that is on our
secure web-space.
Third, each record has a generic link to a master record (that allows you to view links to all
records. We felt this was important to ensure that people realized that there might be related

material. Originally, this pointed to a master record ( />that includes 856 links back to the individual records. We changed this because of the large
number of titles that we were managing to a launch page (also described below). The URL for
this new page is: We are calling it an integrated
launch page, because it has different ways to search the resource (see Figure 3). Highlights of
this page include the display of an RSS of new issues6 (from the Innovative RSS Feed Builder
product) that include the table of contents; a search widget that allows users to search just the
issues of the Medical Industry Intelligence and other Millennium Research Group titles for
keywords; and a link to browse the titles. We hope that this becomes a standard stop for people
doing work in this area. The RSS Feed is a new product from Innovative Innovative’s
Millennium System that allows you to create feeds for records that meet certain criteria in the
system. It is setup to display all new issues of the journal.
Fourth, we are able to include many of the data elements in the template for creating new issue
records (See Figure 3). The Innovative Interfaces record template system in Millennium allows
you to key a new record with both the fixed and variable length fields (MARC) already
populated with data. So this allows us to have greater consistency between the records for


different issues. The only changes that we make are the link to the record, the table of contents
notes, and the date information. This speeds up the process tremendously. The graphic of the
template is attached to this document.
Fifth, by keeping the records consistent, we can allow for dynamic searches to be run from
anywhere. For example, we can create a search that can be run at anytime that looks for the title
to be Medical Industry Intelligence or the author to be Millennium Research Group. 7

WORKFLOW METHODS USED TO PROCESS THE MATERIALS
From a management perspective, we sought to create an approach to this process that was
efficient, but effective means of managing the description and access issues associated with
additional titles that were made available. The goal was to create a sustainable system where
new issues can be added quickly to the catalog and not be subject to an eternal doom of original
cataloging. To this end, the library needs to start with some assumptions about these records.

These assumptions are:
1. KISS- Keep it Simple Stupid. There is no easier way to kill a project than to make it
more complicated that it needs to be. If this process is easy, it can be replicated for all the
new issues that arrive and our patrons will get the resources more quickly. Our goal was
not to wait for the perfect cataloging record, but to place a resource out there for our
patrons that they could use soon after it was published.
2. It will be different. This whole cataloging approach is different, so if it does not match
up with everything we have done to date. It is important that we are flexible in our
method and do not force this material to fit the other criteria that we use in the library.
For these unique titles, we need to ensure that we have a unique approach.
3. Make it easy to add new titles. While this ties back to point number 1, we wanted to
ensure that our library system was doing the work for this project that it can easily do.
With our Innovative Interfaces system, we have access to sophisticated templates that
include text and allows us to control what prompts are being asked for. This way, we
create a new template for each title and use that to create the new records for arriving
issues. The creation of the template should be the hardest part of this whole work. Once
this is done, the addition of new issues must be easy for it to be carried forward. This
also reduces problems with inconsistent records and increases processing time
dramatically.
4. Focus on the search terms. We include the table of contents as a 505 notes field. This
is part of our keyword search and so these terms are now very findable. This is what we
know our patrons use when they are searching in our catalog. In an effort to keep this
process moving, we have elected not to add subject headings for each issue, but to rely on
the terms that are indexed in the keywords.
5. Finally, our mantra for this project “Lets not split hairs, when no one cares.” We can
spend hours and hours cataloging a resource for the library. However, if we add the table
of contents to a field that is part of the keyword search, we can be confident that 95% of
our users will find the resource. The added work of fine tuning the record at the expense
of other work will not dramatically increase our patron’s access to the record.

6. Use and review. It is important that we continually review this process and make
modifications and changes as we see fit. In changing the format to allow us go from a
master record (which require manual linking to the individual records) to a launch page,
we have increased efficiency and provided our students with a worthwhile resource for
browsing and searching these titles.
7. Apply to other titles. We will be able to apply this to other titles as we move forward.
With each passing title, we will hopefully learn new tricks, but all the while, make
resources more findable by our patrons.

CONCLUSION
As with any project, the proof is in the pudding. One year into the project, we discovered that
we do not have a means of tracking usage. We are going to change that method so that we can
evaluate this project more effectively. We do have anecdotal evidence that it is being used
through the interaction with the librarians who are working with the medical device MAP teams.
We would expect and hope that as we find ourselves with 27 issues of the Medical Industry
Intelligence and related Millennium Research Group resources, that we should be able to see and
increased value in these resources as a whole.
By virtue of creating MARC records for each of these issues, we feel that we have met our goals
of providing a place for these documents that can be more easily found by our patrons without
forcing them to approach this in one particular way. We are following this same path with other
publications that we are managing including the digital copies of the Dividend8, the magazine for
the alumni of the Ross School of Business. Additionally, we are using this for electronic copies
of market reports that we can share with the members of the Ross Community.


Figure 1: This is the public display of the records in our catalog.


Figure 2: These are two screen shots from the launch page

( />

Figure 3: Template for new records. The Arrow shows the fields that are prompted when keying
the new record. The person, upon creating the record, will only update the title, add the table of
contents, change the cataloging date and add the media field (962) after the record has been
saved. These four steps allow us to maintain this system easily.


ENDNOTES


1

For more information on the school (including national and international rankings), please visit:
For its MBA program, the Ross School ranked: #1 in Wall Street
Journal, 2006; #5 in BusinessWeek, 2006; #9 in Economist, 2006 and #11(tied) in U.S. News and World Report, 2006.
2

See

3

See this direct link to our catalog record: :80/record=b184569; the electronic resources are
stored on a single page here: />4

/>
5

See my blog entitled “Nonprofit Resources (at Kresge Library)” at />
6

/>
7

to search for the issues of the original title. Use
to search for all titles published by this vendor.
8

For the collection, please see: />For a sample issue, please see: :80/record=b245273