• Article Type: General
• Product: SFX
• Product Version: 3

Description:
We would like an explanation of how the "related Object" logic works and the guidelines used in the decision to add "related Object" the SFX KnowledgeBase

Resolution:
Related objects in the SFX KB are created when the same journal has several editions with two distinct ISSNs or the journal has changed the ISSN from a certain date onward, but is essentially the same entity. Since there can only be one unique ISSN per object, another object has to be created for the journal. The end user may not know which portion or which time period of the journal they are searching for, so when using Citation Linker or a source which is configured to ignore date thresholds, links to both related objects appear in the SFX Menu when only one of them is requested. If each object has its own date threshold, and a regular source that obeys date thresholds is used, this may not be an issue.

Because each edition or time period has its own ISSN we must have 2 objects in SFX. Frequently, information providers chose which ISSN to list their journal by, so the KB team must have to list the object portfolios correctly according to the ISSN the target is using. However, since the content is the same, users need to be able to get access through their institutions subscriptions regardless of which ISSN was received on the OpenURL. Therefore, when the 2 ISSNs are related, seamless linking to targets for both ISSNs is allowed. By making them related we are able to acknowledge that 2 separate objects are acting as one object.

If you believe that some of our "relations" are incorrect, and the journals in fact are not the same entity, please report those cases directly to our KB team by opening up a support incident in the CRM and selecting "SFX KB" as the product.