Page 133 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Knowledge Organization: Classification and Cataloguing Theory

Notes
NWLIP also saves subscribers money by identifying partnership locations first; reciprocal
lending between these partners means that subscribers only have to pay for requests
fulfilled by libraries outside the partnership.
Use of SUNCAT

“For journal articles…SUNCAT is the first port of call.”
The NWLIP location service receives email requests from its subscribers, including details
such as title, author, year, page numbers, etc. Some subscribers conduct a quick initial
search and only submit requests where they cannot easily locate an item, while other
subscribers automatically pass on all of their ILL requests.
A growing number of requests are for journal articles and for these the first port of call is
SUNCAT. The requests often only contain truncated journal title details so the SUNCAT
cross referencing is invaluable. If the journal cannot be found on SUNCAT, it usually
means that there is a problem or error with the request details. In such cases an Internet
search can help to clarify the details, at which point the SUNCAT search can be repeated
with the updated information. On some occasions a quick search is conducted on Copac,
while this rarely produces an alternative title to that on SUNCAT, it does sometimes
produce additional locations. Although, not all the NWLIP libraries are included in
SUNCAT it’s not usual to check these separately as the item can generally be found among
the journal holdings available on SUNCAT.
Once the libraries holding the particular year, volume and issue are located on SUNCAT
the details are sent back to the subscriber along with the relevant British Library codes.
Other NWLIP partnership library locations are highlighted first due to the reciprocal
interlending agreement; however, all available locations are listed ensuring that the search
service is fully comprehensive.
Key Functionality of SUNCAT for NWLIP

“It’s really useful for lots of things; it will translate the details supplied by the borrower so
that when I enter citation details into SUNCAT, even if I have no knowledge of that
journal, SUNCAT will provide cross references, which is excellent.”
“The results look very clear.”
Firstly, the bibliographic details are important in order to verify details, spellings, dates,
titles etc. as provided in the ILL requests. Secondly, the holdings information is also vital
to find out which libraries hold the journals and the particular years required. The cross
references are particularly useful for finding out if and when journals have changed title
or if the request only includes truncated journal title details.
Value of SUNCAT for NWLIP

1. Improves Supply Rate to Borrowers: “For a journal request I’ll rely primarily on
SUNCAT.”
“Generally speaking if the journal exists and the details are correct there is normally
something on SUNCAT. I don’t think I very often come across anything I haven’t
been able to trace. If I can’t find any record at all on SUNCAT that suggests to me
there’s something wrong with the details the borrower has given.”
Using SUNCAT has an obvious impact on the supply rates to borrowers. Journal
article requests have increased, perhaps due to users finding more information on
the Internet, so SUNCAT helps NWLIP libraries to supply to their end users.

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