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OCLC Pilot Project: Some 16,000 bibliographic records for e-serials have been loaded into MERLIN. OCLC uses holdings data supplied by TDNet to identify and pull records for our e-serials. The records can be identified by the OCLC number prefix OCLCePilot followed by an actual OCLC number. One may browse these records in the MERLIN WebPAC by entering an OCLC number search with the prefix OCLCePilot.

This two-week trial period will commence on June 8 and end on June 23, 2006. Please add your comments about your experience and feedback from patrons here. JSM June 9, 2006

Comment (RLB): I assume that once we move to the new resolver, that is what MERLIN will link to?

Comment 2 (RLB) I have looked at a few records one by one and checked whether the links take you to the right journal, and so far they have. I started with results page #50, starting with Oclcepilot38094914 and got as far as OCLCePilot38095670. I don't have any more "natural" experiences to report, except -- when I was testing the new resolver with a faculty member Friday evening, there was an instance where he could not find electronic holdings of a journal for the dates he wanted using the resolver, but somehow when he looked the journal up in MERLIN, where he expected to find print holdings, there was only a link to an e-journal. He was scrolling up and down the record, searching for a call number and getting progressively more confused. This is of course a comment on the entire practice of cataloging e-journals at all, but I still thought it was worth mentioning.

Comment 3 (RLB): I have checked a few of these links, but as I've been looking at the MERLIN screens, it occurs to me that it might reduce user expectations of linking directly to an online title if the text in MERLIN read, "List of Online Versions" or "Link to All Web Versions" instead of "Link to Web Version