ACQNET v2n026 (February 24, 1992) URL = http://www.infomotions.com/serials/acqnet/acq-v2n026 ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 2, No. 26, February 24, 1992 ========================================= (1) FROM: Christian SUBJECT: Who's new on ACQNET today (8 lines) (2) FROM: Eleanor Cook SUBJECT: Use of the Internet by vendors (13 lines) (3) FROM: Joyce Ogburn SUBJECT: Firm order claiming (20 lines) (4) FROM: Christian Boissonnas SUBJECT: Firm order claiming (56 lines) (5) FROM: Ned Kraft SUBJECT: W.H. Everett, vendor slips (8 lines) (6) FROM: Nancy Gibbs SUBJECT: Private offices for technical services staff (16 lines) (7) FROM: John Reidelbach SUBJECT: Scholar's Bookshelf, Princeton Jct., NJ (10 lines) (8) FROM: Eric Carpenter SUBJECT: Wittenborn Art Books, Inc. (8 lines) (1) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: February 23, 1992 From: Christian Subject: Who's new on ACQNET today Gayle N. Garlock Associate Librarian University of Toronto Library E-mail: GARLOCK@FLIS.UTORONTO.CA (2) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1992 21:48 EDT From: ELEANOR COOK Subject: Use of the Internet by vendors I read with great interest Adrian Alexander's comments about using the Internet for important kinds of data. Though he quotes the "experts" at Faxon, not everyone in his company feels the same way. And to be fair, it probably is not a Faxon phenomenon at all. It's the "jump on the bandwagon" syndrome. If something looks good, then more of it must be better. It's the American way. However, that is not always the case. I have been asked to make comments on this in Katina's _Against the Grain_, so watch for it. I hope that in many forums we can continue the dialogue about what the Internet is good for, and what it is not ready for yet. (3) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Feb 1992 08:50:47 U From: Joyce Ogburn Subject: Claiming At the main library at Yale in the Acquisitions Department claiming is done by the same staff who order. It is our view that the people who order will become familiar with the vendors, their services, and will be able to judge when a claim is appropriate. We also aim to work with the bibliographers as necessary on particularly problematic orders. Since ours is a new organization and the folks ordering are still new to this function, I doubt we will achieve the high level of expertise we desire in the immediate future. We are also a NOTIS site and have backlogs of claims. Some of the items showing up on our claims list don't really need to be claimed at all. During the course of training and bringing up NOTIS a lot of mistakes were made and the results are showing up as items needing claiming. We are slowly working off the old items which don't need claiming and have actually done some SAS runs to remove categories of problems from our list. As we look into more problems, I hope we will find more categories of items that we can remove from the list with global changes. (4) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Feb 92 12:40:55 EST From: Christian Boissonnas Subject: Firm order claiming I operate under the assumption that vendor selection and monitoring are complex issues, being possibly the only activities in acquisitions work that require experience and professional judgment (and let's leave aside here the question of whether one acquires that experience on the job or by having one's neurons fired up by an MLS.) Claiming, or more precisely, deciding when to claim is so tied in to the issue of monitoring that I just don't understand how it can well done using defaults such as "claim any order that's over 3 months old," or left to anyone but the most experienced staff in the department; these people have to know about the behavior of individual publishers, vendors, as well as ways of doing business in different parts of the country. The consequences of making a wrong decision are: 1) to send a claim when one isn't called for, which irritates vendors and raises their costs, hence our costs. Automated systems, which have given us the ability to claim automatically, exacerbate this problem. If serial vendors begin to charge for claims, as I believe they should, that decision will have been triggered by librarians letting their systems claim happily away. 2) to not send a claim when one is called for, and running the risk that a book will become out-of-print before the ordering library can get it. I use "book" here, but it also applies to serials or anything else libraries order. So what's a library to do? Isn't it safer to err on the side of caution and send a claim? For the short term, yes, maybe. For the long term, no. That practice is raising the costs for all of us, and we would dearly love to not have to pay for other libraries' expedient decisions. It is best, in the long run, to not fall in either trap. This means education, and fine-tuning of the order process. Each purchase order in an academic library results from a succession of individual decisions made by different people. The person who decides to claim has to understand the factors that impacted on these decisions. Many are the same that enter in making the decision to claim. This is why Scott Wicks, the Assistant Acquisitions Librarian at Cornell, and I, make all claiming deci- sions, every single week, on all orders that drop on our claim alert list. Scott reviews the firm orders and I review the standing orders. If one of us isn't there, the other does both. I can't imagine any other activity that we engage in, the two of us, that has more professional content than that one. It takes us each about one hour per week. Admittedly we have help. A NOTIS library, we have a great Claim Alert List that takes the place of the indigenous Expired Action Date List. It's great because we designed it ourselves, to include what we wanted about each title: An adequate bibliographic citation, and the complete ordering, claiming, and reporting history for that title. We work from that list, issuing instructions to the data entry staff who will actually carry out our decisions. If I were in a small library, with 3 people, when I used to have six, I would still find a way to make the claiming decisions. (5) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 24 Feb 92 10:19:00 EST From: Ned Kraft Subject: W.H. Everett, vendor slips I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has used W.H. Everett for UK selection slips, especially those in a position to compare Everett's coverage to Blackwell's. Everett's slips appear to have a good deal more information on them but I wonder if they cover UK publications as thoroughly as Blackwell's? (6) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Feb 92 08:50:29 U From: Nancy Gibbs Subject: Private offices for technical services staff Regarding private offices: Yes, I think they are essential for acquisitions staff dealing with vendors as Joyce stated. However cubicles can still not prevent people entering your office and seeing what is on your computer. At my previous institution we had cubicles (some with high walls and some with low walls) but the fixed position of the computers dictated that the screens were facing the doorways, which also meant supervisors backs were to the door entrances. This was most disconcerting: You could never see who was entering and you still had no privacy of data on your screen. I also found it very difficult for all my staff to have individual cubicles - supervision of staff was impossible. It was also very hard to see if an employee was struggling with a new task or was having problems because there was no sight lines from my cubicle into anyone I supervised. Perhaps if Marylou were to get cooperation and understanding from the architects she might avoid this problem. (7) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1992 15:03 CDT From: John Reidelbach Subject: The Scholar's Bookshelf I have never dealt with The Scholar's Bookshelf (Princeton Jct., NJ) and I wonder if you or anyone on ACQNET can tell me about their services. We are considering purchase of _The Illustrated Bartsch: A Complete Pictorial Encyc- lopedia of European Prints_ currently in 81 volumes. By purchasing through The Scholar's Bookshelf we think we will be able to save more than $1,100 over another source. Any information will be appreciated. (8) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 24 Feb 92 17:10 EST From: Eric Carpenter Subject: Wittenborn Art Books Inc. Wittenborn Art Books, Inc. (1018 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10021) has gone out of business. ACQNET readers will want to check on outstanding orders they have with this firm. Our Art Librarian has confirmed that this is a fact. For more information contact me: Eric Carpenter, Oberlin College Library. ******* END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 2, No. 26 ****** END OF FILE *******