Updating Coverage Logic for CAIRN Journal Collections in Knowledgebases

Product: Alma, SFX, and 360KB

Article date created/modified: October 15, 2025

Description: This article addresses a customer-reported issue regarding the CAIRN Journals collection and the discrepancies observed in coverage data. The issue pertains to the use of embargo information in the KBART file versus the coverage dates for determining the collection's availability. CAIRN has clarified that institutions not subscribed to CAIRN collections should rely on the freely accessible contents collection and that date fields should be prioritized over embargo information for bibliographic coverage.

Resolution:

1. Disregard the embargo field when determining coverage for CAIRN journal collections.
2. Use the date fields provided in the data file to ascertain the actual coverage of the journals.
3. For subscribing institutions, ensure that the complete bibliographic coverage is based on the date fields instead of embargo data.
4. Review and adjust the coverage logic for all Cairn collections accordingly.

Example:

• La Revue Documentaires (ISSN: 0981-9118):
  • Expected coverage based on date fields: Available from 2007 volume: 21 issue: 1.
  • Current incorrect coverage based on embargo: Reflects an embargo of R3Y (i.e., "Most recent 3 year(s) available").

Note / Important:

• It is confirmed that the embargo information is only relevant for institutions without a subscription to Cairn.info. For institutions with a subscription, the embargo does not affect access, and bibliographic coverage should be derived from date fields.
• Institutions that don't subscribe should activate the freely accessible contents collection instead of the standard one.