The Serials Catalog Librarian runs regular reports on the Sirsi catalog to check the urls of all active electronic continuing resources to maintain their currenty. At the beginning of every month, IT runs a report on the Sirsi database which extracts the urls from all active continuing resource titles and exports them into a text file, which is emailed to the Serials Cataloger as an attachment.
- Save the file sent by IT as a text file: sirsi.txt (if the system asks if you want to replace the previous file, answer Yes)
- Go into Microsoft Word and open the text file.
- Use the <Autoformat> command to format the file (this will make all the urls into hypertext links)
- Re-save the file as a web page: sirsi.html
- Open the url checking software program (currently Xenu)
- Go into: File / Check url
- Click the <Local File> button, then browse to find the sirsi.html file you created earlier, and select it (if asked to replace the previous file, say Yes)
- Choose <Open>, then <OK>
The program will then check all the urls in that file, as if it were a web page, and produce an error report. When it is done, it will ask if you want to save it as a web page; say <Yes>, and the error report will display as an web page. The report only displays the errors and the urls, not the titles, so you will have to copy each url from the error report, then paste it into Sirsi search, using the General index search field, to display the resource with a problem. You don't need to check all errors–don't bother with Timeout errors. Error 403 (forbidden request) usually occurs on sites that are screening out automated programs, so click on those urls in the Xenu error report to see if they actually work; if they do, you don't need to do anything else.
For Error 404 (not found) and other similar page or site not found errors, once you have gotten the resource's name from Sirsi, go into the library's e-journal portal (currently SFX) and search to see if the url has been changed or updated (for databases or indexes, look in the library's electronic resources container page (see http://library.rice.edu/collections/eresources). If the portal or database list has a working url, copy and paste that into the Sirsi record. If the e-journal portal url also gives an error, you will need to fill out an problem report (see http://library.rice.edu/services/access-to-electronic-resources/reporting-a-problem-with-online-resources-1/problem-form), and someone from the Electronic Resources group will get back to you. Shadow the bib record in the meantime, and change the 856 field to a 956 field in the bib record, so that users will not try to access the non-working url.
If the title with the bad url does not appear on the e-journal portal or the database list, and the serial control record indicates that it is free, just withdraw that item. On the bib record, change the 856 url field(s) to 956 fields (so that they won't get picked up again by the url checker) and add a note in a subfield x stating that the url was bad, the date you checked it, and your initials: $x bad url, 7/31/13,ajr/CAT. Email the Collection Development librarian who asked that it be catalogued, if their initials are in the Serials Control record, and let them know the url is bad; sometimes they will find out what the current url is and you can re-activate the record in Sirsi.
When finished with the Xenu report, save it in the same folder as the sirsi url files as: Xenu1.xen; if the program asks if you want to replace the previous file, say Yes (we only keep the latest report).