What's your experience with the new ProQuest platform?

[Stacy Pober]

We are in the same position as you, in that we were planning to migrate to
the new platform, but have some doubts about the wisdom of doing this.

We just signed up with Serials Solutions, which is a ProQuest subsidiary.
In the Serials Solutions client center (the admin interface) they list the
number of journal titles in each database, and for the ProQuest databases,
they list them separately for the "Legacy interface" and the new platform.

In almost every case, the legacy platform has more journal titles than the
new platform.  If the Serials Solutions information is accurate, we'd be
losing access to some ProQuest content if we switched over.  There's also
at least one database (PQ Health & Medical Complete) where we might gain
new content on the new version, but there's some corresponding name
confusion in that case.

I have asked both ProQuest and Serials Solutions support about this, and
have not gotten a satisfactory answer yet. (Basically, the front line tech
support said they didn't know but would look into it.)

Also, at least in Serials Solutions, there seems to be some confusion over
whether some of the Legacy platform database names are the same as the new
platform names.

The differences are small, but I don't like to lose content just to switch
to a new interface, particularly when we don't see it as an improvement
over the old interface.

Examples:
Database                   -  # of titles:
ProQuest Central (Legacy) - 13155
ProQuest Central (new)  -     13102

ABI/INFORM Global (Legacy) - 2864
ABI/INFORM Global (new) - 2851

ProQuest Health & Medical Complete  (Legacy) - 1675
Health & Medical Complete - 1875
Health & Medical Complete (new) -  1875
(no entry for "ProQuest Health & Medical Complete" on new platform)

I've noticed that the journals tracking services associated with particular
database vendors are not particularly accurate when tracking the
publications from those vendors.   When we had EBSCO AtoZ they weren't very
accurate about EBSCOhost holdings, either.

I was very satisfied with the 1cate/WorldCatLinkManager openURL/journals
list service and I'm sorry that OCLC is no longer offering it.  They paid a
lot of attention to data accuracy, and their tech support was outstanding.


-- 
Stacy Pober
Information Alchemist
Manhattan College Library
Riverdale, NY 10471
stacy.pober at manhattan.edu



On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 2:27 PM, Munson, Doris <dmunson at ewu.edu> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> We're considering switching to the new ProQuest platform over winter
> intersession.  However, I've heard there are still some problems with it
> and would like to know if this is really the case.
>
> If you have switched, are you encountering any problems with the user
> interface?  With the admin module?  Do you recommend switching over to the
> new platform or waiting?
>
> Thanks,
> Doris
>
> Doris Munson
> Systems/Reference Librarian
> Eastern Washington University
> dmunson at ewu.edu
> 509-359-6395
>
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