More Wrong Subscriptions!

April 2021 update.

Our Callisto service has many unique benefits. But one of our favorites is discovering when an e-resource content provider has made a big mistake, and is granting subscription access to the wrong institution.

For example, today as I write, we see that three different providers are accidentally authorizing the wrong institutions to access to subscription resources that are paid for by the University of Illinois at Chicago, Ochanomizu University in Japan (お茶の水女子大学), and two campuses in Taiwan: Kaohsiung Medical University (高雄醫學大學) and the Taipei College of Maritime Technology (台北海洋科技大學).

We’ve seen this happen with some regularity for many years, since before Callisto was even out of alpha testing.

How can your library get information like this?

Easy! By subscribing to Callisto at your institution, you’ll immediately see which subscriptions are accessible from your networks, plus if we detect one of YOUR subscriptions elsewhere, we’ll notify you that it’s happening and from which incorrect IP range(s).

Why would you care?

There are several important reasons this matters!

1. Suppose you’re a researcher at Kaohsiung Medical Univ. You need to consult your library’s subscription material but find you can’t get in. Your IP address is being denied access. Or it may be recognized but the limit of concurrent users is saturated because people on other campuses are using up YOUR licenses. But you and your librarians have no way to discover this (without Callisto).
2. Suppose you’re at the Florida Institute of Technology. Your library subscribes also to many journals or databases at the same provider as Kaohsiung Medical, but of course you need a DIFFERENT set of titles than they bought. When the provider goofs this way, you still seem to have access to that provider, yet it’s the wrong content.
3. Your institutional usage statistics will also be completely wrong for this time period, and may cause your library to cancel some titles and purchase some others, partially based on some OTHER institution’s usage patterns!
4. Suppose you work for the content provider/vendor. You’re granting access to potential customers and losing business revenue!

Contact us to get your library’s e-resources on track.