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I write to tell you about some assessment work that has been conducted
regarding the accuracy and availability of fulltext links through the
Yale Links (SFX) service. When a Yale Link to fulltext is
inaccurate or broken that can be very frustrating to users, and I think
it is important to gave patrons a very realistic view of what to expect
from Yale Links. To help measure this I've worked with staff in
electronic collections (Daniel Dollar and Nisa Bakkalbasi) to investigate
how often a user might encounter Yale Link errors in their work, and also
how often they might find fulltext through Yale Links. We
conducted a test on a sample of 150 such links in April, and found that
there was an error rate of <b>19%</b>. The error rate included bad links
and missing links (no fulltext is indicated when fulltext exists).
<br><br>
E-collections staff have worked at improving the holding information for
Yale Links. In a follow up test conducted in June of 300 citations,
we found that the error rate was lowered significantly to
<b>11%</b>. The error rate should continue to improve as staff work
on the Yale Links holdings, and we'll test the links again later this
semester.<br><br>
We also found that fulltext links are much more common in some
disciplines. 80% of medical and science citations had fulltext
available, 52% of social science citations had fulltext, and 30% of
humanities citations did. This is just an approximation from the
fulltext available in this sample through Yale Links, but it is also
probably a fair estimate of the amount of fulltext available in general
in these disciplines.<br><br>
A summary of how we conducted this test and the findings is available
from the PIC web site:<br>
<a href="http://www.library.yale.edu/fdc/Yale%20Links%20-%20Accuracy%20Assesment.doc" eudora="autourl">
http://www.library.yale.edu/fdc/Yale%20Links%20-%20Accuracy%20Assesment.doc</a>
<br><br>
Please let me know if you have questions.<br>
Katie Bauer<br>
Usability and Assessment Librarian<br><br>
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