It’s not unusual for content providers to move platforms; technological opportunities are improving all the time and as publishers strive to be competitive and relevant, sometimes a new technology partner is the best choice. Despite the relatively frequent occurrence, platform changes still pose challenges for both publishers and subscribing libraries, as well as everyone in between such as link resolvers and agents.
This session will look at migration issues from a new perspective: not what the challenges are but why exactly they are challenging. Questions such as why Permanent URLs are so hard to achieve, and why Alerts often can't be copied over, will finally be explained. From the library viewpoint questions such as why they need to create custom URLs will be answered, together with a case study of how one library handled the recent event of several publishers moving platforms all at once.
Both publishers and librarians will come away with a clear understanding of why technological challenges arise that risk loss of access for users, and using the recent SPIE Digital Library move Silverchair as an example, lessons will be shared that help every player involved understand and mitigate the issues involved and avoid any break in service for users.
