October
17-20,
2004
Federal Depository Library Conference
October
17-20,
2004
ERIC
The ERIC system has undergone a lot of changes lately and so I was very interested to hear their presentation. The "new" ERIC database hopes to be more comprehensive through cover-to-cover indexing of journals that previously had been only selectively indexed. They hope to have the capability for libraries to indicate their holdings, but I did not get a chance to ask more about this. Full-text electronic availability of all non-commercial material is the goal of the new system. Older items (from before 1993) are not included in the full-text system because permission for electronic distribution wasn't part of the process prior to this date.
STAT-USA
It had been a while since I'd been to a Stat-USA update sesssion and was impressed with some of their new enhancements. They now allow browsing by series and have a new site search feature. More annual data has been added to USATrade and they will continue to grow the years available (now there are 12). Future enhancements to this database include data by port and mode of transportation.
Marcive
They reported that 1/2 of their monthly files of records are now for online only titles. With GPO being up to full strength in the cataloging department, records for some very old docs that were in the backlog have been coming through. Marcive can hold those and not send them if a library doesn't want to receive them. Some enhancements to Marcive Webdocs are coming, specifically an internet only search field, to be added to the combined search function early next year. They also gave us a tip that sounds like a good one: use item number plus a date range to generate lists of docs for weeding.
