Serials Solutions Releases KnowledgeWorks

The librarian-built Serials Solutions is not remaining idle in the new year. The company has thoroughly revamped its knowledgebase under the name KnowledgeWorks. Referred to by the company as an “e-resource knowledgebase,” it now covers e-journals, ebooks, legal citations abbreviations, and titles entered through a Library Managed Holdings feature. The knowledgebase is part of the company’s AMS Access and Management Service, now rebranded as 360 Core.

In order to keep its metadata accurate and up-to-date, the company’s team of professional librarians works closely with content providers to collect and, more importantly, detect and mend errors in bibliographic metadata.

“They [use] proprietary software tools to fix missing and erroneous data and normalize titles across vendors to authority sources,” Serials Solutions confirmed. This data is locally customized and used to connect patrons with content.

As of January 2008, the knowledgebase included over 6500 databases, 106,000 unique titles, 1.2 million CONSER MARC records, and 97 million library holdings. Serials Solutions additionally applies over 16,000 rules to more than 750 databases “to address specific reporting problems from vendors and correct confusing or incorrect data.” KnowledgeWorks users also participate in an error-correcting “community” of thousands of librarians who review the data and provide amendments.

To maintain the integrity and accuracy of KnowledgeWorks, the vendor has established a metadata certification program for content providers.

Serials Solutions additionally has made improvements to its 360 MARC Updates OPAC service, including features such as trackable brief records and combined records, and support for new formats like ebooks and Unicode UTF-8. “By providing customized MARC records for a library’s electronic holdings, the 360 MARC Updates service keeps the OPAC as the authoritative inventory tool for all of the library’s collections,” Serials Solutions said, adding that the trackable brief records are processed in the same stream as full MARC records “to save time and energy by creating smaller downloads. Full and brief records are now combined...to reduce customer downloads by half and eliminate the need to maintain multiple electronic records from multiple sources.”