[WEB4LIB] Re: web searchable full text journal list database

Dan Robinson Indexing Services drobinson at info.hwwilson.com
Thu Feb 25 15:00:51 EST 1999


Right. Since there's really no way to tell when one particular index 
would have a change, a two week or even monthly check would probably 
work. 

Actually, if you had access to our DOS (remember dos??) products, all 
of the discs have our journal file on them, updated monthly. 

Dan Robinson
drobinson at hwwilson.com

On 25 Feb 99 at 14:31, Jian Liu wrote:

> Thanks, Dan. Guess I wasn't very clear. What I wanted to say was the
> fulltext titles in Education Abstracts Full Text has not been changed in
> the past week (177 titles), even though the whole list was updated almost
> everyday. It is hard to imagine a journal title with fulltext is added
> or dropped everyday. So I really don't need to update my list whenever
> you update yours.
> 
> Jian
> 
> > 
> > Jian, I can't speak for the others, but the html based journal list 
> > for Education Abstracts Full Text (and all of our periodical 
> > products) is updated each night whenever a change is made to any 
> > record in our Journals file.  The changes might not take place in the 
> > particular product that you are tracking,  but the changes will be 
> > made to the lists the same night that they are put into our own file. 
> > 
> > Dan Robinson
> > Indexing Services
> > H.W. Wilson Company
> > Bronx, NY
> > drobinson at hwwilson.com
> > 
> > On 25 Feb 99 at 10:25, Jian Liu wrote:
> > 
> > > Hello again. I'll try to finish it this time.
> > > 
> > > Data collection and update:
> > > 
> > > Most of our databases have title lists.............
> > > 
> > > The hard pieces are Education Abstracts, ABI, Ebsco and Lexis-Nexis. But
> > > once you figure out how to extract the data, it becomes fairly easy. For
> > > example, Education Abstracts with Full Text. You need to download the
> > > list. (I use: lynx -source http://www.hwwilson.com/journals/aedi.HTM >file)
> > > Then you need to analyze the data. Each record looks like this:
> > > 
> > > <tr>
> > > <td WIDTH="35%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><small>Action in Teacher
> > > Education</small></td>
> > ...........
> > > 
> > > About Updating:
> > > You have to rely on the vendors of the databases to keep the lists up to
> > > date. 
> > ................
> > . Other lists are
> > > less frequently updated. ABI was last updated in Jan. Education Abstracts
> > > posts a new date nearly everyday, but since for the past week, there has
> > > been no change at all in the fulltext list. The concern I have is when
> > > the vendor changes the database but does not update the list. Instead
> > > they post a separate change list. This will create a lot of headache. I
> > > don't know how to deal with this situation yet. Up to now, I am only
> > > grabbing the complete list.
> > > 
> > > So with the current setup, if I do a monthly update, it will probably take
> > > me about 3 to 5 hours. When I have time, I'll write out all the steps in
> > > detail so that other people will be able to take over the project. For
> > > now, I am the only person doing the whole thing.
> > > 
> > > There are other database vendors whose title lists are not readily
> > > available. These I have to omit.
> > > 
> > > Future plans? Not much. For example, adding titles freely available from
> > > the internet, not those with one or two articles in one issue and then it
> > > disappears. Real ones, like the dlib. Exploring with mysql so that the
> > > data will sit in a real database, to increase the speed of searching. Set
> > > it up so that my colleagues can help me manage a section of it by adding
> > > individual titles in their areas of study. Ideas? Suggestions? Comments?
> > > 
> > > Jian Liu
> > > Indiana University Libraries
> > > > 
> > > > Dear all,
> > > > 
> > > 
> > 
> 
> 


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