Colleagues, We've been live with Evergreen Acquisitions for more than a month now and firm orders are becoming routine. But at some point we are going to need to find a way to account for periodical subscriptions; particularly our big EBSCO invoice. I understand that the Acq module is not currently designed to do this, but we may have come up with a workaround (a kluge really)
*Step one*: get pertinent subscription information. This is easily downloadable from the EBSCO website in a spreadsheet format. Of particular importance are the following categories: Title Cost Subscription start date Subscription expiration date Format (e.g. print and/or online) EBSCO title number Fund Code OCLC number EBSCO does not supply the OCLC number, so creating that column is a one time manual process. *Step two:* define a profile in JTacq that will allow this data to be imported; a quick one time process. *Step three:* create a Holdings subfield map in Evergreen for provider EBSCO; also a quick one time process. *Step four*: create another map in JTacq that assigns the data elements to appropriate subfields in the 962 field that will be used to populate Evergreen order data and copy records. Here is what our map looks like plus sample values: i = barcode = 036004000-13F (the EBSCO title ID + 2013 Florida campus) a = call number = Subscription Record t = circ modifier = JOURNAL d = collection code = PER (code used to define its Order Type) l = copy location = IN PROCESS p = price = 24.60 b = fund code = FT (Florida campus, Theology acct.) n = note = (Format: Print) (Subscription period: 1/1/2013 to 12/31/2013) o = owning library = ATS-DCL c = quantity = 1 *Step five*: pull the bib records using an OCLC number Z39.50 search from Evergreen. *Step six*: batch apply the 962 tag to the corresponding bib record. This is a one button process that takes very little time. *Step seven*: export the modified records from JTacq and import them into Evergreen using the Acq import method. Data will populate the PO, overlay existing bib records, and create copy records. The new copy record can be used as a makeshift historical record of orders and "rate adjustments". Ideally it would be shadowed from public view on import. *Voila * It is not an elegant solution, and at some point the types of categories and data that are unique to subscriptions really need to be intentionally accommodated in the Acq Module. However, using this approach has the potential to make it possible for us to deal with the annual EBSCO invoice in a day instead of a month. That is *unless I am missing something!* I know this is pretty abstract stuff, but can anybody see an Evergreen barrier that shoots this method down? We are at the point where we can try it with a batch of about 100 records. But we don't want to do something that will cause a nightmare. Insights? Please. Don -- Don Butterworth Faculty Associate / Librarian III B.L. Fisher Library Asbury Theological Seminary don.butterwo...@asburyseminary.edu (859) 858-2227