The Catalogue Fusionné des Périodiques de Mathématiques, combined catalogue of mathematical periodicals (CFP) created by Mathdoc makes it possible to search for paper and electronic periodicals contained in the libraries of Réseau National des Bibliothèques de Mathématique, France’s national network of mathematical libraries (RNBM) and to view the corresponding collection status. Searches can be conducted by title word or by ISSN / PPN. Users can also access the list of the libraries participating in this combined catalogue and access their catalogues directly by clicking on the Libraries tab.
Content
Links to the ISSN Portal
The CFP contains bibliographic records describing journals as well as collections and seminars for the mathematics research community. The titles selected in the CFP must meet specific criteria. The enrichment of records from library catalogues with imports from the ISSN database has enabled the integration of historically linked titles. The original records mainly concerned titles in printed format. Titles which are only accessible in electronic format have been added to the database.
Links with Sudoc
Links to the records of the national Sudoc catalogue are created automatically by querying a web service from Agence bibliographique de l’enseignement supérieur, French bibliographic agency for higher education (Abes); the link is made via the PPN, which is a unique identification number in Sudoc. The bibliographic records are associated with copy records describing the condition of the printed versions of the collection at the participating libraries. These copy records were enhanced for the purposes of the PCMath by adding technical descriptions of the collection (linear metres, condition of the binding, physical state of conservation).
Links to the License.rnbm website
The CFP quickly developed to become a catalogue listing printed and electronic versions of journal titles. To facilitate management and avoid duplicate records, the CFP displays data on printed and / or electronic media for a given title (paper ISBD data, ISSN, electronic PPN, link to the electronic version). Links to the electronic version of titles (periods of electronic access) under license agreement were imported in bulk from the website licence.rnbm, the knowledge base for publisher licences in mathematics.
GesLic
The GesLic application was designed to report electronic subscriptions for each RNBM library. Since it was first created in 2017, it has successively grown through the addition to the corpus of titles of national licenses, consortial licenses (e.g. Couperin) and then publisher licenses. Libraries can link to subscribed licenses so that subscribed periods are displayed in a banner on each CFP record (as for subscriptions to the printed version).
Promotion of Open Access journals
In 2020, Mathdoc and RNBM wanted to promote the titles of Open Access mathematical journals in the CFP. A programme linked to the DOAJ makes it possible to import the links of journal titles in the field of mathematics. This program can be launched at any time to update these links. Links to online journals from several DML (EuDML, Math.net.ru, GDZ, Scielo, etc.) and DOAJ (including titles from centre Mersenne and Numdam) have therefore been added.
Features
Reporting and managing printed collections
The catalogue allows libraries to:
• list their names under the titles they have in their collections
• display the list of titles they have
• display the condition of the collection and gaps for each title
• describe the physical condition of their collections
• identify and display their unicas
They offer several features to facilitate the management of their collections and updates for the other catalogues they contribute to:
• import of collection conditions and gaps from Sudoc
• hyperlink with the bibliographic record of the periodical in the Sudoc
• export of titles for local analysis and processing
• display of title histories via a dynamic tree chart
• import of collections from a library via a PPN file
Reporting and managing electronic subscriptions
Using the GesLic application built into the CFP, libraries can :
• report their own electronic subscriptions and those of their supervisory authorities and national subscriptions
• display the access periods subscribed on a timeline combined with a text bubble
• the library can use the alphabetical list (or the “Electronic Collections” service) to view a history of its subscriptions and conduct searches by title, ISSN, PPN, publisher
Management of the Plan de conservation partagée (PCMath)
CFP is the tool used to implement the Plan de conservation partagée des périodiques de mathématiques, shared conservation plan for mathematics periodicals (PCMath). PCMath provides special features for participating libraries:
• positioning and management campaign for applications to the conservation centres and associated centres
• view of the complete PCMath corpus with the conservation status of each participating library for relevant exports
• view of PCMath collections specific to the library
• one-off view related to a specific project
Members of the PCMath technical committee and the CFP operational committee have been granted extended rights for the following purposes :
• management of PCMath phases
• entry and modification of the positioning of participating libraries during application campaigns: conservation centres and associated centres
• identification and management of reference collections (“Colrefs”)
• view of other national and regional conservation plans related to Sudoc.
• correction of bibliographic records via ISSN import
• manual correction or creation of records
These developments are closely followed by Abes, which wishes to draw inspiration from them to develop the display of periodicals.
Associated web services
Numdam uses a CFP web service to display journal history, based on CFP data (see illustration * above).
CFP story
CFP is technically maintained by Mathdoc, which it develops in coordination with various RNBM working groups in response to technical developments and needs expressed with the aim of making substantial improvements both in terms of data quality and features:
2022: following recommendations of the working group that conducted a project to “clean the CFP content”, the CFP operational committee was set up at the end of March. The committee is in charge of ensuring the quality of CFP content, implementing changes to the tool (ergonomics, features, new services) and coordinating the needs of the various RNBM working groups in their CFP projects.
2021 : after CFP emerged as a key solution for facilitating the management of electronic resources and their access via Portail Math, a team of GesLic administrators was formed; it brings together members of the editorial committee for the website licence.rnbm and the Mathdoc developer in charge of the CFP. This team improved GesLic’s administrator and user interfaces.
2020: after being developed by Mathdoc and RNBM from 2017 to 2019 and tested and supplemented by 5 pilot libraries (members of the Portail Math working group), the GesLic application integrates CFP software to facilitate its maintenance. It was designed in 2017 to centralise electronic journal subscription data from RNBM libraries. It receives support for the extraction of publisher licence contract data from the website licence.rnbm.
2017: Mathdoc developed automatic updates for the status of Sudoc collections. Libraries can update a collection’s status and gaps in Sudoc and transfer this data to CFP in a single click, simplifying a process that used to require two steps. In Sudoc, libraries must manually report the titles they have positioned in the PCMath, to ensure PCMath can be viewed using Abes’ Périscope tool.
2016 : as part of the national CollEx programme, Mathdoc funded a temporary position for 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 to ensure interoperability with the Sudoc catalogue. This quickly emerged as a priority to avoid repeating the same actions and to make PCMath’s reporting nationally visible.
2014: A new CFP interface allows RNBM members to better manage information on the status of their collections and apply to become Periodical Conservation centres; other automatic data import tools were also developed (PPN from Sudoc).
2011: the new CFP is presented at the RNBM Days in February 2011. As part of PCMath, all plan members, whether or not they are RNBM members, work in CFP.
2009: Mathdoc leads the redesign of CFP with a special focus on shared conservation. Since the work for a Plan de conservation partagée des périodiques de mathématiques, shared conservation plan for mathematics periodicals (PCMath) first began, CFP, which was well established in the community, played a central role in the project and was selected as the tool for the plan.
2008: the CFP develops and enables the cataloguing of journal URLs and the extraction of lists for the status of collections.
1996: creation of the CFP with collections from RNBM mathematics libraries, from BnF, INIST, INRIA, and by importing data from the ISSN database. The initial goal was to share location information between mathematics libraries, since Sudoc was only fully launched in 2002. Although CFP made it easy to locate booklets in response to requests for articles, it required significant updating work for libraries.
See the documents produced by Mathdoc about CFP.
