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Impact of Primo on SFX

A few weeks ago, we (OLS staff) discussed ways in which the impact of Primo on other systems and environments could be illustrated.

A good place to start with is SFX, since it’s so heavily involved in creating fulltext links in Primo. So one way to measure Primo’s impact on SFX is to count the number of OpenURLs generated by Primo (either through “View Online”, or through the menu under “Other Options”) and compare them to other providers/generators of OpenURLs.

In FY 14/15, the top 5 providers were Primo, bX, Ebsco, Google, and Gale (For the remaining providers, the numbers drop significantly). Here’s a table with the number of OpenURLs generated each month by each provider:

                bX	Ebsco	Gale	Google	Primo	Other
July-14	        3052	14185	6990	6847	308	9672
August-14	1147	7512	1571	5821	859	12186
September-14	4477	25903	3289	10940	19302	25912
October-14	10651	44538	8009	16150	63698	35567
November-14	12934	49530	11050	17189	97932	25718
December-14	9506	31664	7530	15206	86557	19483
January-15	2583	9595	2030	6925	22495	12034
February-15	6194	24143	3317	9526	49877	17518
March-15	12127	41397	7257	15032	96998	24205
April-15	11756	40696	8220	14330	103400	23534
May-15	        10033	33960	7951	13107	99598	18721
June-15	        3494	14075	1955	7026	28637	11702
TOTAL OpenURLs: 1538333

I thought the best way to show the behavior over time is to use an area chart, because it shows how values (# of requests) change over time for different categories (OpenURL “generators”):

impact1

Since it’s implementation at the end of August 2014, Primo has quickly taken over a large share of the OpenURLs resolved by SFX, at a small expense to the other providers, but not by much. It actually looks as if the percentage of requests for the other main providers has remained relatively stable

The same chart in absolute numbers looks like this:

impact2

So it looks as if Primo has taken over a large share of the OpenURL requests, but not so much by taking them “away” from other providers but by simply increasing the number of OpenURLs.

The total number of SFX requests for FY13/14 was about 1.1 million (1,107,169). In the past FY, this increased by almost 40% to 1.5 million (1,538,333). And of these, 670K (669661) came from Primo.

Observations:

  1. In FY 14/15, Primo was responsible for over 40% of OpenURL requests, i.e. SFX menus
  2. It reached this number very quickly, within about 2 months of going live
  3. It simply increased the number of requests, and did not diminish the contribution of other vendors
  4. Given the impact on SFX, the impact on e-resource usage (search sessions, etc.) should be significant as well

Why Does OneSearch Say We Have the Electronic Book?

We’re finding that the Merck Manual is in our results as an e-resource but we only have it in print. Why does this happen?

OneSearch interprets cataloging quite literally.

In this case, the MARC record contains this 856 field (full record):

85641 $uhttp://www.merck.com/pubs/mmanual%5Fhome2/

The second indicator has a mission-critical role (MARC 856 field @ LOC)

  • # – No information provided
  • 0 – Resource
  • 1 – Version of resource
  • 2 – Related resource
  • 8 – No display constant generated

OneSearch interprets all 2nd indicator values EXCEPT 2 as a version of the e-resource.   Since, in the case above, the 2nd indicator = 1, OneSearch reports that the e-resource is available.

If a link is NOT to an actual e-resource, but links to related content, the 2nd indicator should be a 2.

There is one exception.  Sometimes tables of contents and other materials are classified with 2nd indicator = 1, that is, a version of the resource.  In that case, in order to avoid OneSearch reporting that the e-resource is owned, both of the following must be true:

  • at least one of these note subfields must appear:  $3, $y, or $z
  • one of these note subfields must contain one of the following texts:
    • Table of contents (or Inhaltsverzeichnis or Table des matières or Indholdsfortegnelse)
    • Sample text
    • Publisher description (or Klappentext)
    • Book review
    • Contributor biographical information

The most common cataloging for these at CUNY

  • 85641$3 for “Table of contents” and “Sample text” notes
  • 85642$3 for “Publisher description” and “Book review” notes

Before reporting this type of issue to OLS, please check the record metadata with your cataloger.

If the reason for the problem is not obvious from the cataloging and a work order is opened, please copy the 856 field into the work order.

This post was originally published on 29 April 2015. We updated it on 18 August 2015 to reflect the latest information regarding the texts which do not indicate an e-book (for example, klappentext).

New in OneSearch: Enriched Browse

OneSearch Browse OptionOneSearch’s Browse now has a new feature: “See” references!

When browsing by either Author or Subject, the results now link to the preferred term from the non-preferred term.

For example,

  • when browsing the author “shakespeare, g,” OneSearch shows that “Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616” is the preferred form to “Guglielmo” and provides a link to that preferred author:
    Author Browse with See Reference
  • when browsing the subject “cheese cake,” OneSearch shows that “Cheesecake” is the preferred form:
    Subject Browse with See Reference

Note that multiple authority sources are currently present in our search results. In OneSearch, the source of an authority often appears in the right column of browse results. The wealth of resources can lead to duplication of subject terms (example below):

Many Authority Sources

This is not new behavior. We have made some improvements and are continuing to work on this issue. In the near future, we plan to remove all subject authority sources except:
0 – Library of Congress Subject Headings
1 – LC subject headings for children’s literature
2 – Medical Subject Heading