‘Garbage in, garbage out’ (GIGO) problem i.e. Bad Metadata or Source:

This category of problem falls into two sub-categories:

1) Ebsco relies on consistently formatted metadata to populate its display fields and to create links to content, and has to include databases with no option to filter by format or other criteria. Claims they often have little control over the metadata they are supplied with. 

2) EBSCO often only provides dates of coverage that accord with what their contracts stipulate; they will not always provide coverage dates that accord with non-contractual content such as complementary backfiles or open-access content.

Problems arising from EDS’s Basic Architecture:

This category of problem also falls into two sub-categories:

1) Most limiters populate from the metadata provided by searches; this means, among other things, that most limiters cannot be pre-applied to a profile or persist through multiple searches. 

2) EDS is, to put it simply, terrible at reading MARC records.  Many catalog item types are not limitable and/or do not trigger document type icons in EDS.  3) Many elements of EDS search priorities and algorithms are proprietary to EBSCO and cannot be modified by customers.

Database Requires Full Text:

Large databases containing significant amounts of non-subscribed/non-purchased materials, e.g. Alexander Street press or Gale Virtual Research Library, require a Full Text limiter to be applied by default in a profile or else result sets will be clogged with unavailable material.

Acknowledged problem at EBSCO but no solution timeframe given:

 Examples of this include the fact that a certain percentage  (about 20%) of PsycInfo books appear without Full Text Finder ("Find It") links (The Service Issue number at Ebsco for this is 153422), or that users are unable to search the Books and Media profile by call number.