ACQNET v1n048 (March 21, 1991) URL = http://www.infomotions.com/serials/acqnet/acq-v1n048 ACQNET, Vol 1, No. 48, March 21, 1991 ===================================== (1) FROM: Richard Jasper SUBJECT: Recruiting acquisitions librarians (58 lines) (2) FROM: Marsha Hamilton SUBJECT: Recruiting acquisitions librarians (18 lines) (3) FROM: Carol Hawks SUBJECT: Combined monograph/serial acquisition departments (13 lines) (4) FROM: Carol Chamberlain SUBJECT: Combined monograph/serial acquisition departments (9 lines) (5) FROM: Pamela Bluh SUBJECT: Combined monograph/serial acquisition departments (7 lines) (6) FROM: Doina Farkas SUBJECT: Combined monograph/serial acquisition departments (16 lines) (7) FROM: Carol Hawks SUBJECT: Macmillan, single source publishers (18 lines) (8) FROM: James Mouw SUBJECT: Paying in local currencies (28 lines) (1) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 17:10:40 EST From: Richard Jasper Subject: Recruiting problems Re Barbara Winters' recent missive on the ARL library which was having such difficulties recruiting a head of Acquisitions: I'm agog at the reasoning an ARL library director would have used to decide that difficulties in recruiting candidates for a professional position necessi- tated downgrading the position to a senior level paraprofessional. Inability to recruit usually means that there aren't enough good people to go around, or that your salary stinks, or that your library, despite it's ARL status, is situated in the middle of a cultural wasteland, or that nobody in your library knows diddly about acquisitions and/or acquisitions librarians, or all of the above. A more sensible response might be to: 1) raise the starting salary, 2) call your colleagues to beat the bushes for some candidates to contact direct- ly, or 3) to point out that although the community in which your library resides is surrounded by goat farms on one side and toxic waste sites on the other, the average price of a house is one-fifth that found in metro L.A., Chicago, Washington, Boston, New York (take your pick). I'd be inclined to think that any of these things is both do-able AND likely to generate good results. If none of these things is do-able, then the library probably needs to promote that senior level paraprofessional and deal with the consequences, dire though they may be for that person's boss, who may very well get to take on additional areas of responsibility. Partly I'm saying this "if an ARL library director doesn't have more sense than this, that's her/his problem" because I know, sort of, whereof I speak. Don't take this as dirty laundry, because it all made perfect sense at the time, but in the early 1980s the very long-time head of the General Libraries Order Department retired. As part of the reorganization that resulted, new Divisions of Collection Management and Technical Services were created out of what had been the Order and Catalog Departments. There was not, owing to this reorgani- zation, enough money to go around to staff the newer, smaller Order Department at the professional level. And so a long-time senior paraprofessional member of the staff was promoted to head of the department. The new department head, although quite a good day-to-day hands-on supervisor, did not take on any significant responsibility in terms of monitoring the budget or making evalua- tive decisions about vendors, nor did she participate nationally. As a result those areas of responsibility fell to the Director of Technical Services, who more than had her hands full with implementing major automation and retrospec- tive conversion projects. When the Order Department head announced her retirement in early 1989, the Director of Technical Services pushed for and was successful in having the position upgraded to the professional level. The rest, as they say, is histo- ry... Barbara's right, of course, in lamenting these occurrences. It speaks to our isolation and lack of success in communicating what it is we really do to library directors, especially those who do not come out of a Technical Services and/or Collection Management background (and even these folks sometimes aren't sure...) But who's really going to suffer? The individual library, that's who. Soon enough, the people there will figure out the mistake they have made. And because that's the case, I don't think too many library directors are going to say, "Oh, that's what we should be doing, too!" More likely it will be: "Tough break, maybe you'll have more dough in a few years..." (2) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 09:26 EST From: "Marsha Hamilton" Subject: Recruiting acquisitions librarian I am surprised an ARL Acquisition Head position could not be filled. Which institution did that entry refer to? Attendance at ALA shows a large number of educated, competent, ambitious people in the area--is the problem really the institutional environment, salary, unrealistic expectations, etc? An ALA discussion group of which I am currently chair, The Role of the Professional in Academic Research Technical Services, had an excellent panel on this topic two years ago, especially as it related to the "great cataloger shortage". Discussants most often related tales of poorly worded advertisements, unreason- able expectation levels for salaries and benefits offered, and great hesitation on the part of some institutions to offer positions to sharp candidates with excellent personal skills who simply lacked some of the years of direct experience required in the ads relating to the position in question. It is an interesting question to contemplate. Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 17:10 EST From: "Carol P. Hawks" Subject: Combined departments In answer to Vicky Reich's question, both the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Acquisitions Librarian: Karen Schmidt) and Ohio State have combined departments. My department at OSU includes monograph and serials acquisitions, receiving, and invoicing. We do not do cataloging or binding. We are currently very heavily involved in negotiating licenses for networked CD-ROM databases as well. I'd also be interested in knowing who else has combined depts. (4) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 17:58 EDT From: "CHAMBERLAIN, CAROL" Subject: Combined monograph/serial acquisition departments Penn State has had a combined Acquisitions organization - both monographs and serials - for a long time. Two sections comprise the department; they are Ordering and Receiving. Within those sections are several units, some of which are organized by format (e.g., serials receiving), others by function (e.g., ordering). (5) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Mar 91 13:06:41 EDT From: Pamela Bluh Subject: Combined monograph/serial acquisition departments At the University of Maryland in College Park the serials and acquisitions functions are handled in one department. Also, at Johns Hopkins. I would imagine that there are a lot of such unified departments these days. (6) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 13:45:46 EST From: Doina Farkas Subject: Response to Vicky Reich's inquiry re. Acq/Serials dept. The University of Florida in Gainesville is among the libraries where this organizational structure has existed for a long time. Until November 1988 there were 5 administrative units within Acquisitions: 1. Monographs, 2. Serials, 3. Approvals, 4. Gifts and Exchanges and 5. Paying (Accounting). Approx. 6 months prior to my assuming the position of Chair at UF, Pam Cenzer reorganized the Dep. by functions performed: 1. Searching (monos and serials), Order Unit (monos & serials), 3. Receiving (monos & serials), 4. G&E, 5. Approvals and 6. Paying (Accounting). The rationale was that the NOTIS system eliminated the need of dividing by format and also to improve the internal communication process. Currently we are in the process of reevaluat- ing if this structure is the most desirable one. Stay tuned for further developments. (7) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 17:20 EST From: "Carol P. Hawks" Subject: Macmillan Reference titles as sole source At Ohio State we were recently approached by the sales manager and local rep from Macmillan concerning their decision to take all of the titles published by Macmillan reference and market them as sole source/order direct titles. They feel that their reps were working very hard on campuses to sell the titles and "then the library would order them through vendors." Of course, I expressed our dislike of order direct policies and tried to explain to them the very real issues for the library of consolidation versus minor savings per title. Has anyone else been approached or heard about this? It affects monographs primarily but will also affect titles such as the _College Blue Book_ which may be on subscription. (8) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1991 12:48:37 CST From: James Mouw Subject: Payment in foreign currencies Payment in foreign currencies, especially when dealing with small amounts, is always problematic. In some cases the charge for the conversion can actually amount to more money than the invoice total. I have always tried to keep these transactions to a minimum and use alternative sources whenever possible. We hate to deal with it, accounts payable goes crazy, ..... However, there are cases where there is nothing else you can do than to abide by the requirement and pay in that currency. I have found that it can pay to do a little legwork and to shop around for the lowest handling charge. The local bank is not usually the best option. Here in Chicago I found that the local branch of Deak-Perrera had much better rates than the bank and that it was worth our time to get a check cut to Deak and to run it downtown for conversion. This does take a lot of cooperation with accounts payable to ensure that the check is cut quickly before the conversion rate changes. Looking back at it I'm not sure it was worth the effort. When we are billed in a foreign currency we convert to U.S. dollars for payment unless the invoice specifies that payment must be in local currency. The checks are never bounced back. Is this how other libraries are handling these situations? This, by the way, is not the same thing as paying large foreign invoices in the local currency when the billing in U.S. Dollars is at a disadvantageous conver- sion rate. I have been known to pay those in the local currency. ***** END OF FILE ***** END OF FILE ***** END OF FILE ***** END OF FILE *****