ACQNET v4n060 (December 5, 1994) URL = http://www.infomotions.com/serials/acqnet/acqnet-v4n060 ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 4, No. 60, December 5, 1994 ========================================= (1) FROM: Jack Montgomery SUBJECT: Charleston Conference Report (131 lines) (2) FROM: Caleb Hanson SUBJECT: Charleston Rump Session Report (48 lines) (1)---------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1994 12:04:35 -0600 (CST) From: Jack Montgomery (Univ. of Missouri-Columbia, Law Library) Subject: Charleston Conference Report Fourteenth Annual Charleston Conference The Fourteenth Annual Charleston Conference on Issues on Acquisitions, Serials and Collection Development Issues was entitled "The Savage Marketplace." Approximately 500 publishers, vendors, and librarians from the United States, Great Britain and Europe got together to discuss what keynote speaker Jerry Campbell of Duke University called the current "state of turmoil and colliding interests" that confront our professions on the issues surrounding copyright and fair use. Dr. Campbell went on to define the participants in the current business arena including university administrators who, until recently, didn't care about the state of libraries because for universities "there was no money in it" but now are paying close attention as the operational costs for institutional libraries has soared over the last decade. New players include Telcos (telephone companies) and cable companies, and the federal government also has moved into the arena to try to insure that the process of knowledge moves forward and to add perspective and balance to the issues. The once happy marriage of publishers, vendors and information professionals has broken down. Dr. Campbell advised us to be proactive and not allow the federal government to make our choices with regard to the current period of technological and institutional evolution. This basic theme of managing transition being established, most conference presentations followed similar themes. Publishers and librarian discussed the issues and problems resulting from the sale of a major vendor or subscription agent. I'm certain all of us in law libraries remember the period of trial and tribulation as the Thompson Corporation began buying various legal publishers in the early 1990's. Dana Alessi (Baker & Taylor), Barry Fast (Academic Book Center) and Bruce Heterick (The Faxon Company) gave observations from the vendor's point of view. Librarian Connie Kelley (Univ. of Va.) reminded us of the vital need to maintain communication with all parties involved. One interesting presentation focused on the use of automated system generated circulation data for collection analysis and development. Chuck Hamaker of Louisiana State University shared the results of his study indicating among other things, that reference traffic does not accurately reflect patron use and suggested that you must collect patron data over time and by type to hope to make informed selection and budgetary decisions. Subjective observations of collection use are often not supported by the objective data. Tony Ferguson of Columbia University outlined their program for the selection and evaluation of electronic journals. The Lively Lunches program featured dialogues and specific topics such as a description of the PromptCat and PromptSelect programs being developed by OCLC. As usual, discussion were spirited and informative. Thursday afternoon programs featured presentations on incorporating the resources currently available on the Internet into the acquisitions process and to the organization of electronic resources in an institutional setting. Speakers included Alis Whitt, (College of Charleston), Jack Montgomery (Univ. of Missouri), Bill Britten (Univ. Of Tenn.) and John Cox (Carfax Pub. Co.). Charles Germain (PCG, Inc.) spoke on publishing in the international market- place and John Secor gave a paper which covered organizational change topics. On Friday the program began with an inspirational presentation by Paul Clipp of Southern Associates, a management and consulting firm, on the structure and elements of productive negotiation. Barbara Meyers (Meyers Consulting Services) and Charles Germain then performed Act II of a two-part skit they began on Thursday that parodied the tensions between librarians and publishers. The topic then shifted to the issues surrounding the current trend towards the outsourcing of technical services operations such as processing and cataloging. Discussions began as Keith Schmiedl, President of Coutts Library Services, described how they moved into the outsourcing business. This evolution caused Coutts to re-examine the boundaries of their relationship with libraries. As Coutts got several contracts to do "opening day collections" for several new libraries, the dynamics and problems of this new undertaking began to present themselves. Outsourcing benefits include the obvious financial savings to being able to reallocate those resources. Outsourcing, Mr. Schmiedl advised, will be successful only if the library has an accurate picture of its actual costs and a vision of the results/benefits of its outsourcing program . Coutts has been able to deliver cataloging at a demonstrated savings of 40% to 60% over traditional methods. In one sense, we in libraries, have brought outsourcing upon ourselves through our inability or unwillingness to focus our attentions on the costs of doing what we do, our lack of expectations with regard to job production and our provincial rigidity with regard to our records. After another presentation by OCLC on its outsourcing programs, Ernie Ingles, Director of Libraries at the University of Alberta, outlined how they have outsourced some technical processing and all cataloging as a response to a "severe and ongoing base budget reduction." Mr. Ingles outlined in detail how issues like reduction in staff and the problems of establishing quality standards for the evaluation of outsourced work in the University of Alberta setting have been resolved. The afternoon included another set of "Lively Lunch" sessions and a series of concurrent forums focused on issues related to various formats and topics. Following a reception in Charleston's historic Exchange and Provost Dungeon the night before, the Saturday programs centered on the topics of international concerns, copyright, fair use and the new electronic information environment. It became clear that while important to librarians, these issues are of critical importance for publishers. Robert Kling (UC-Irvine) discussed print and digitial libraries from the scholar's perspective. Liz Chapman (Oxford) gave a amusing but bleak picture of marketplace conditions in the UK. Charles Germain and Bron Solyom (u. of Hawaii) gave reports concerning European and Pacific Rim conditions, respectively. A panel on intellectual property issues began with an introduction to the legal aspects of copyright by Eamon Fennessy of The Copyright Group. As a part of his presentation, Mr. Fennessy offered the Copyright Office telephone number, (202) 707-9100, where librarians can call for publications on the responsibilities and relationship between fair use and copyright in the library environment. Jill Braaten, Director of Copyright Education, Association of American Publishers, presented publishers' growing concerns for the future management and control of copyrighted information. Eleanor Cook, Appalachian State University, then responded for the library community by indicating that librarians have become more sensitive to issues of copyright and fair use. She reminded the audience of our different philosophical positions: publishers sell information while librarians are used to providing it a little or no cost. We have reached the situation where technological advances in digitized information and electronic dissemination have clouded the issues. As a result, we require a greater sensitivity to and clearer definitions of our rights and responsibilities as information professionals. The trend towards electronic reserve collections was used to illustrate this issue. A final presentation on the ramifications of the client server environment was offered by Clifford Lynch, from the University of California, noted for his work with their MELVYL system. Afterwards, many attenders took time out for a bit of sightseeing and shopping in Charleston. Everyone agreed that they returned home better informed with many new ideas and concepts to ponder until next year. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 09 Nov 1994 16:22:16 -0500 From: Caleb Hanson Subject: Charleston Rump Session Report Back in March of this year, Christian Boissonnas posted an editorial here on ACQNET; it was reprinted in the September 1994 issue of _Against The Grain_, with an accompanying "Call to Action" by Katina Strauch and Judy Webster. In his piece, Christian listed a number of current issues that ought (he thought) to be hotly discussed by acquisitions librarians, and a number of acquisitions forums - like ACQNET, and the ALA's Acquisitions Section - where he felt such discussion was not happening. (If you don't remember the editorial, go look it up right now.) At the Charleston Conference last week, the Rump Session was dedicated to considering this deafening silence. Let me tell you what we came up with. We gave up pretty quickly on the question of Why?, and tried instead to answer the question of Who? *Is* there any community out there in the field of library acquisitions? Many people at the table denied being acquisitions librarians, at least by title. Since these denials were coming from people who are considered very much part of the field (like Christian, Katina, Chuck Hamaker), we tried to describe who the field is. Some of the terms tossed around included: information comptrollers, information purchasing agents, "like NAG in the UK, but not exactly;" "What NASIG is, but for all formats;" the money people, information resource managers, "zoompwuchers" (is that supposed to be a real word, Katina?), "the CompuServe for the institution," Librarians Without Walls, and The Old And The Restless. (Hey, it had been a long day.) Then I tried my term: the "getters", those people who *get* the information that's out there, and *get* it into (or *get* at it for) the library. This, regardless of format (monograph, serial, whatever), regardless of medium (print, digital, whatever), regardless of institutional affiliation (includes vendors and, probably, publishers as well as people inside the libraries). This was well received, and I was directed to write it up for ACQNET. That's what this is. Catch is, it doesn't necessarily get us anywhere. This class of "getters" I described is pretty much equal to the mix of people that make up the Charleston Conference - the word "Charlestonians" was even suggested, as prettier than "getters". So naturally that description was well received, under the circumstances. So I throw the question back out again: Does this group constitute a community anywhere outside Charleston SC, the other 51 weeks of the year? If not, should it? If so, are they talking? If they are talking, why not in the forums where Christian is looking for them? And if they're not, why not? I think I have an opinion about the last two questions, but I'll save that for the next post. ****** END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 4, No. 60 ****** END OF FILE ******