Kamat's Potpourri: AnthoBLOGy - Electronic Journals Management and EBSCOhost EJS

Managing and distribution of of all subscribed electronic journals content is becoming a major nightmare for academic librarians, due to lack of standards, complex publisher licensing models, legal matters, link-rot (changing URLs), and inability to search for content across journals and publishers. The EBSCO Online product introduced in 1994 tried to solve many of these problems by becoming an aggregator of electronic journals. The product, free till now, has been re-Christened as EBSCOhost EJS and the customers have been asked to choose between the paid and enhanced version, and a free and watered down version. This article compares the two so buyers of electronic journals (e-journals) can choose which plan is right for them.

Searching for journals, articles, full-text are very rudimentary features provided by most electronic journal systems, and are provided in either versions.

A comparison of e-journal management features	EJS Basic	EJS Enhanced
Full-text search across journals and publishers This is the single most reason why you would want a e-journals system. If you don't need this, you don't need an e-journals system, instead consider a URL Management system like TDNet or Serial Solutions.	•	•
User or Access Profiles The ability to manage different user groups within a library by location, IP addresses, passwords, etc.	•	•
Content Exclusion The ability to restrict a group of users from accessing some content (due to licensing agreements or due to impropriety of content)		•
OpenURL Linking Ability to create hyperlinks in and out of the system following the OpenURL standard	• Link in only	•
Librarian Alerts The ability to inform the librarian on change in journal titles (like change in ownership), or expiration of subscriptions, or changes in prices.		•
Online Usage Stats Ability for the librarian to see which journals are being accesses, searched, or used to determine whether or not to renew the subscription next year.	•	•
Pay-per-view and Prepaid Pay-per-view Ability to purchase full-text of articles when the library has no subscription for it.		•
Import/Export of Subscription History Ability to bring all the subscriptions ordered through different agents to one place for easier management		•
Linking Private and Internal Sources Especially helpful in the corporate libraries, this functionality allows for integration with Inter-Library Loan systems, and content behind a fire-wall.		•
Custom Branding Ability to define templates and custom logos so the e-journals system looks and feels like an institution's website. Custom support-phone numbers, and policies can be made visible to users.		•
Patron Customization Features that students and researchers at a library can customize. Examples are bookmaking and e-mailing of items, perpetual access to favorite pages, ability to sign up SDI (Selective Dissemination of Information) alerts etc.		•
Ability to view abstracts even though there is no subscription. Many journals provide a public abstract even though an institution has no subscription for it. This feature bridges the gap between research databases and e-journal systems		•
Integration with Local Holdings/OPACs and Document Delivery systems Integration of e-journals with rest of the library is performed via durable links to journals, and custom links specific to journals, and users.	• Only durable URLS	•
Librarian Scripted Authentications With this feature, a librarian can automate the authentication of users via encrypted tokens or encoding the passwords within a URL		•

If your institution is using internal staff to manage the various links to the publisher websites, it is worthwhile to consider EJS Basic. It is free and provides necessary and sufficient e-journal access functionality. If you are an institution with more than 500 electronic subscriptions (especially bought through multiple agents, or consortia), EJS Enhanced is for you. If you need any of the features mentioned above and if you are an existing EBSCO customer, the decision is even simpler to go to EJS Enhanced as EBSCO has said that they will perform integration of all the subscriptions bought through them. The researchers will also benefit from the EBSCO SmartLinking technology that can link the research databases to the full-text via EJS Enhanced.

At the time of this writing, no information on a competing product as vast in scope or in size as EBSCOhost EJS (over 9000 journals) was available.

The author Vikas Kamat is a electronic content management consultant and follows among other things, libraries, and weblogs.