ACQNET v3n022 (March 7, 1993) URL = http://www.infomotions.com/serials/acqnet/acq-v3n022 ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 3, No. 22, March 7, 1993 ===================================== (1) FROM: Christian SUBJECT: Who's new on ACQNET today (9 lines) (2) FROM: Beverly Forsyth SUBJECT: Australian vendors (17 lines) (3) FROM: Dottie Marcinko SUBJECT: Out-of-print veterinary books (9 lines) (4) FROM: Ann McKee SUBJECT: Acquisitions profession (36 lines) (5) FROM: Marsha Skoman SUBJECT: Acquisitions profession (20 lines) (6) FROM: Peter Stevens SUBJECT: Acquisitions profession (17 lines) (7) FROM: Joe Barker SUBJECT: Purchasing power computations (41 lines) (8) FROM: Doug DeLong SUBJECT: Updata Publications, Los Angeles (10 lines) (1)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: March 7, 1993 From: Christian Subject: Who's new on ACQNET today Carlene D. Aro Serials Librarian South Dakota State University Library E-mail: AROC@MG.SDSTATE.EDU (2)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: 4 Mar 93 10:09:05 GMT+1100 From: Beverley Forsyth (La Trobe Univ.) Subject: Australian vendors This in reply to Gene Dewey who was asking about Sources for non-trade Australian imprints. We also use the supplier who charges $15.75 handling for non-trade Australian imprints. We have an alternate source that charges cost + 60%, but this is only cost-effective up to a list price of $26.25. The problem is that often this type of material appears in the _Australian National Bibliography_ as 'price unknown.' Sourcing these orders becomes a matter of judgement. I have recently been notified of another supplier who is offering this service at cost plus $10.00 flat rate. I am following up on this. (3)------------------------------------------------------------------------ DATE: 03 MAR 1993 16:23 -06 FROM: Dorothy K. Marcinko (Auburn Univ.) SUBJECT: Out of Print Vet. Books Does anyone know of a dealer specializing in o.p. veterinary books? Occasionally we need one and have not had a lot of luck getting them. Dog Ink in Larchmont N.Y. has some very old, rare ones evidently but not the run of the mill 1983 o.p. type. (4)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 Mar 93 08:49:05 EST From: Ann McKee (Arizona State Univ. - West) Subject: Acquisitions profession I hope that someone might be able to aid me in the following request: Bibliographic Services at ASU West is responsible for pre-order searching, ordering, receiving, paying and processing of all material regardless of format. The only function we do not do is the cataloging of material (cataloging is done on a contract basis with the ASU Tempe campus.) The department is team-led by 2 librarians (the Head of Collection Development and Bibliographic Services, the Bibliographic Services Librarian) as well as one high level library supervisor clerical position. Being a relatively new campus (5 years old) the West librarians have labored long over creating a promotion and tenure document that would suit our needs and the campus' as a whole. However, we have discovered that during campus or peer review periods, both librarians in Bibliographic Services have a difficult time translating what THEY do into language the other librarians or teaching faculty can understand. They are evidently looking for the kind of statistics that the public access librarians can generate (i.e. how many hours spent at the reference desk or in collection development, number of faculty each liaison librarian works with, how many bibliographic instructions courses taught...) Both the Bibliographic Services librarians as well as the Research Support librarians are extremely active in library, campus and university committees and governance structures. So after my lengthy explanation, what are the ways some of you document/ explain what YOU do? We are extremely reluctant to begin counting every second that we spend in doing our work but would prefer to look at some innovative methods instead. You may respond to me directly and I could summarize for ACQNET if there is interest in this issue. (5)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 10:17:22 -0600 (CST) From: Marsha Skoman (Drake University) Subject: Library profession Being a professional does require putting in more than 40 hours a week. My concern is that many librarians burn themselves out by putting personal time into keeping a department running smoothly when instead they should be re-evaluating work patterns, delegating, and/or hiring additional staff. We are too darn helpful for our own good sometimes. This is hard to do in these tight-budget times, but the library will be better-served in the long run. It is also hard to do if supervisors and directors themselves don't delegate or see that staff needs to be used more effectively. In a pre-library school job as a library technical assistant, I stayed late and worked weekends a lot, unbeknownst to my supervisor. The person who took my place when I left couldn't do the work in 40 hours a week and my supervisor thought he was incompetent. When I found out about all this, I felt very guilty. I had done that man and my supervisor a great disservice by not making her aware of work flow problems and helping her solve them. (6)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 08:31:17 -0800 (PST) From: Peter Stevens (University of Washington) Subject: Acquisitions profession One last point about the estimable Joe Barker: does he realize the damage he has done by shattering a valuable, life-affirming myth? Many of us acquisitions librarians have toiled for years, fueled by the vague hope of one day discarding the suit and tie, the endless meetings, the forced civility--and moving to an acquisitions job in California. There we could abandon grey Ithaca winters or ceaseless Seattle drizzle, work with laid-back tanned California people, open our office window to palm trees, the warm Eucalyptus breeze and the sound of Pacific surf, keep our long board in the office waxed and ready for lunch-hour boogying, and dress for the library in surf trunks, Hawaiian shirts and zoris. Now, thanks to Joe, it seems like just another executive sweatshop, where all thoughts are on the Great Questions of Librarianship.... (7)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 07:52:07 PST From: Joe Barker (UC - Berkeley) Subject: Purchasing power computations A number of years ago, when Berkeley faced up to the fact that its great serials collection was threatening its once-great monograph purchasing power, I began a series of measures to help the University Librarian visually dramatize this situation to the campus. One was to estimate our purchasing power by 4 broad acquisitions disciplines (sciences, humanities, social sciences, area studies outside US and Europe). I chose these because I felt the price of serials and monographs in these categories showed the most variation. Using information from vendors, from our Innopac data, and from price information in _Bowker Annual_ and LC's annual price-of-materials reports and anything else I could get my hands on, I made what I believe to be fairly good estimates on what Berkeley's unit cost for a monograph and serial are in each of the four disciplines. Then I divided annual monograph and serial expenditures in each discipline by the price and came up with relative purchasing power in each area in each material type. I presented these in graphs using Lotus 1-2-3 (not ideal, because it can only graph 6 variables at time, making me always have to present aspects of the picture). The effects were to show both the serials crushing the monographs in every discipline, and the erosion of purchasing power in both. The outcomes were interesting. We got a little money. We canceled serials. We also decided that in some disciplines, 85-90% serials is o.k. We also began some rational planning to allow serials collection growth and greatly enhance collection development's feeling of accountability and control for their budgets. I don't think there is a universal cost of materials index that is reliable. Berkeley's serials and monographs costs are always different from what vendors and other reports. But, after a while, one can learn the relationship we have to those, and get a "gut feeling" or informed intuition about how to estimate one's unit costs accurately. The rest is arithmetic and learning basic spreadsheet stuff. (Please don't ask me for a current set of these graphs, because I haven't yet updated them for 92/93 and what appears to be, for us, a scary 93/94.) (8)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 Mar 93 15:02:15 CDT From: Doug DeLong (Illinois State University) Subject: Updata Publications Updata Publications, Los Angeles, recently called us about transferring our CD-ROM subscriptions from Silverplatter and other sources (not H.W. Wilson). We have used them as a source of CD-ROM products, but not on a subscription basis. Comments direct to me are welcome; I will summarize for ACQNET. ****** END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 3, No. 22 ****** END OF FILE ******