ACQNET v7n006 (February 11, 1997) URL = http://www.infomotions.com/serials/acqnet/acqnet-v7n006.txt ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 7, No. 6, February 11, 1997 ======================================== (1) FROM: Susan Zappan SUBJECT: B & T Hawaii Outsourcing Project (59 lines) (2) FROM: Mike Eisenberg SUBJECT: Outsourcing and the future of libraries (94 lines) (3) FROM: Robert Finch SUBJECT: Outsourcing (60 lines) (4) FROM: Pat Wallace SUBJECT: Please Share Experiences re: Outsourcing (42 lines) (5) FROM: James Casey SUBJECT: Hawaii Horror (37 lines) [ED. NOTE: This issue of ACQNET is devoted to additional thoughtful commentary about the outsourcing controversy, much of it repostings from lists you might not read. While this has been going on, Baker & Taylor has made the headlines once more regarding a lawsuit which alleges that they tampered with discounts to libraries and bookstores. This new development has received wide press, so we see no reason to repeat it all here. If you are interested, check out the Baker & Taylor web site at: http://www.baker-taylor.com under "what's new."] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 15:15:38 -0500 From: Susan Zappen (Skidmore) Subject: B & T Hawaii Outsourcing Project I am familiar with Baker & Taylor's approval plans and consider them a great help in collection development, but not a substitute for collection development. You can profile for both subject and non-subject attributes of a book, but you can't predict publishing trends. For example, a few years ago it seemed as if EVERYONE was publishing books on the 19th century garden. Yes, one or two were appropriate for our collection, but not twenty on the same topic. (The subject bibliographer returned the others.) Angels were a hot topic a year or two ago. The soul and spirituality are the current rage. Again, a library may want to select one or two for the collection, but not purchase all the titles published even though they fit the library's profile. The examples I have given may seem more relevant for public libraries, but academic disciplines experience the same sort of publishing booms (the 100th anniversary of an author's death, Jane Austin, the country's bicentennial, etc.). This quantity issue becomes a quality issue when you consider your collection as a whole and your limited resources. I find it difficult to accept that a whole technical services department was disbanded. A technical services department is where public services begin. Our professional cataloger does not handle 90% of the material cataloged. The cataloger's responsibility is for original cataloging (every library has material that is unique to the library or the region) and for maintaining, interpreting, and enhancing the online catalog for library users. Finding a cataloging record, exporting it to your local system, and generating labels is the easy part of cataloging. That can be done effectively and economically by clerks and student assistants. The challenging part is dealing daily with faculty and student requests not just for specific titles but for specific handling, i.e. place the book in a specific collection. Although my library is located in just one building, it has 76 collection codes. I realize that there are differences between public and academic libraries. My experience has been in academic libraries, but I am a public library patron. Public libraries do accept gift books from local authors. Who will catalog them? Who will order the titles requested by the local citizens? Do the patrons do without because titles weren't profiled or supplied by B&T? Who will order the short-run, locally published titles about Hawaii? What about all those locally added notes to cataloging records that inform and guide library users? What library wants a flat rate regardless of list price and a non-return policy? If I were the vendor I would be tempted to empty my warehouse of slow moving titles. A quality collection and quality service are the achievement of quality people who are available to respond promptly to public requests. What's next? Eliminate reference librarians because we have access to the internet? Susan Zappen Head of Technical Services Lucy Scribner Library Saratoga Springs NY 12866-1632 Phone: (518) 584-5000 ext. 2126 Fax: (518) 581-6079 (2)--------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 20:38:11 -0500 (EST) From: Mike Eisenberg (Syracuse U.) Subject: Outsourcing and the future of libraries [Ed. Note: Re-posted from LM_NET, by Pat Wallace, with permission] I know this message may get me in some trouble, but I think we need to broaden the discussion. PLEASE - do not respond to me personally on this. Please respond to LM_NET. [Persons who do not belong to LM_NET may send their responses to ACQNET] Also, please note that the following comments do NOT reflect any support for the outsourcing that's going on in Hawaii and elsewhere. However, I do think we need to more than just attempt to change the decision(s). The recent developments in Hawaii and elsewhere really don't surprise me. We often talk about continual change, and it's not always logical and well thought-out. However, I encourage everyone to be less defensive about this development and start thinking about how this might be turned around - not to necessarily stop the outsourcing (I'm not sure that will happen), but how to use this as an opportunity to expand and promote library services--including resources provision, direct information service, access to technology, and information & technology skills instruction. For example - ** The view may be that "all" that librarians do is provide resources. Is this a chance to mount a major effort to promote a much more proactive and service-oriented vision? If we focus on just overturning the outsourcing decision, that doesn't really help our profession and our students. ** We've heard lots in recent years about the shrinking collections in many situations. Perhaps this development will put more money into collections. Isn't it possible to have an outsourced baseline collection--selected by local professionals or in close consultation with local professionals--and then fight for additional funds at the building level to fill in gaps that relate to specific curricula? ** Library media specialists also lament the lack of time for instruction and services. In some districts and regions, there is central ordering and processing with input from local professionals. This saves time and money. Can you conceive of a situation in which local professionals work in partnership with an outsourcing company that operates in much the same way as a district or regional ordering and processing center? ** Think about what's happening with full-text periodical databases. An increasing number of library media specialists are cutting back on their print periodical orders and relying on electronic products. Isn't this also outsourcing in a way? ** Schools are changing and the predictions are for drastic changes in the next 25 years that revolutionize the learning environment providing a full range of opportunities for students (e.g., virtual classrooms that only meet in cyberspace, 7 day/24 hour learning situations). Parents and their children will choose from among the options and put together an individualized learning program. And yes, they will choose from public, private, and commercial learning providers as well. I'm not saying this is better, but it certainly appears that it's coming. What's the role of the library & information program in such a world? Surely we will be needed more than ever. Our mission of "ensuring that students are effective users of ideas and information" will be even more important. But will we be there? Part of the answer to this is how we react to current "challenges." We need to look forward. For example, Clinton's proposal for after-school reading programs - one could interpret this as a slap in the face of school librarians. Why didn't he turn to us? Didn't he think of us? But another way to think about this is to see it as a chance to expand our influence and profession. Let's get involved in these programs - lead them, show them the way. Let's encourage librarians to take these positions. Same thing for technology coordinators/specialists. Yes, these can be threats to library media programs. But, we can also be the ones to fill these positions. Who is the best computer coordinator in a school? A well-trained library media specialist, that's who. So, the technology and computer area becomes a way to expand library media involvement, influence, services and program. So, I hope we will open up our individual and collective minds and think about ways to channel these threats into positive opportunities for library media programs and our students. Mike | Mike Eisenberg | Professor, School of Information Studies | Director, ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology | 4-216 Center for Science and Technology | Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-4100 | Phone: 315/443-4549 Fax: 315/443-5448 (3)---------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 01:35:32 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Finch (Fort Worth PL) Subject: Outsourcing [Re-posted by Pat Wallace with permission] I have seen some very logical and thoughtful rebuttals to the polemics over outsourcing. These arguments do point out that we should not demonize B&T, Ingram, Brodart, etc. since they are only trying to make money. Cursing them for exploiting a willing market is like damning a compass for pointing north. These rebuttals still do not resolve these problems. 1. Outsourcing puts layers of bureaucracy between the customer and the collection development selector. From experience I can say that fine tuning only adds complication to the policy and procedures needed to ensure the elimination of duplication. 2. No one person can be expected to know enough to purchase materials covering the sum total of man's knowledge. There will be holes, increasing the number of selectors decreases the number of holes. THAT IS WHY THERE IS NO UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE IN LIBRARIANSHIP. We need people with a variety degrees in librarianship. Consolidating collection development into fewer people magnifies these holes and spreads them over a wider area. 3. Spreading collection weaknesses over a wider area combined with increased layers of bureaucracy means slower response to changing conditions. (as if we were speedy already) 4. Outsourcing is for reducing budget expenditures. This means cutting subscriptions to ordering media. This means librarians are getting best seller information slower as limited resources are routed throughout the system. This reduces their effectiveness. 5. Collection development is a part of learning the collection. Knowledge of the collection is a part of the value added service we provide. Slow down our access to timely information and then reduce our ability to know the collection and you reduce our value to our customers.Reading the reviews, selecting the materials, prioritizing the order, and examining the materials when they arrive is an important part of learning the collection. 6. Each community is different and constantly changing. Outsourcing cannot tailor each library or branch to each community and respond to changes within that community. The librarians who work with the collection by answering questions, weeding, and talking to the customers are the ones who know what is needed. Community profiles cannot communicate detailed knowledge to remote selectors bound by complex policy and procedure manuals. So far I have no rebuttal to these concerns which leads me to believe that outsourcing is anything but bad librarianship. Peter Drucker wrote an article on leadership called "Not enough generals were killed!" My article should be called "Not enough directors were embarrassed by customers finding gaping holes in the collection!" -Robert Finch ********************************************************** * Views represented are strictly personal and *DO NOT* * * represent those of the Fort Worth Public Library. * *********************************************************** (4)---------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 17:28:40 -0500 (EST) From: Pat Wallace (Texas Women's Univ.) Subject: Please Share Experiences re: Outsourcing I am very happy to see an increase in the number of very thoughtful posts regarding outsourcing as one aspect of the future of libraries and the role of professional librarians. I would like to encourage, as part of this, the offering up of examples of all the variations on outsourcing selections & cataloging (as opposed to more traditional acquisitions functions such as purchasing, shipping, barcoding, etc.) that have been tried, as well as in-house alternatives to outsourcing, i.e. centralized selection/cataloging within larger school districts and public library systems. And they need to be evaluative, lessons-learned kinds of sharing. I invite all who have experience along these lines to share their experience with the rest of us who are interested in the issue of what will become of our traditional roles as book selectors and describers of books and other databases in the future. My intent is to treat the Hawaii phenomenon as the opening salvo in a move on the part of large corporate vendors like B&T to extend their outsourcing services to book selection and cataloging and to further extend the market for such contracts from Academic/Special Libraries to public and school libraries. I'm trying to get librarians working in those settings to give serious thought to this supposed "wave of the 21st Century" to see if that is really the direction they think libraries should go in. Current SLIS graduate students at Texas Women's University, which I attend, who take Tech Services courses use a text (1994) which does not even have an index reference to "outsourcing" and re selection, simply affirms that that is a core library function. There certainly is a need for ALA or some alternative library leadership to speed up our thinking about the attendant issues connected to the rapidly growing desire among vendors to take over selection for library clients. Thanks for your interest. Patricia D. Wallace Chair, Hawaii Working Group (ALA Social Responsibility Round Table /Alternatives in Print Division) SLIS graduate student, TX Women's University (5)---------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 00:17:17 -0500 (EST) From: James B. Casey Subject: Re: Hawaii Horror [Re-posted from Publib by Pat Wallace with permission] I would agree with much of what Robert Finch has stated, and add that a librarian's knowledge of a specific community, student body and clientele is as essential as the librarian's knowledge of the collection. Comprehensive outsourcing of selection and all technical services functions not only separates the librarian from the collection, but the collection from the patron. Communities are ever changing - as are their library service needs. Librarians who work the desk, travel on bookmobiles, visit the schools, lecture to the local Kiwanis, etc. are the professionals who should be best equipped to build the collection. The more remote and robotic the collection development process becomes, the less relevant it is likely to be. In such cases, circulations per volume, circulations per capita, and circulations generated as a result of materials expenditures would probably all reveal diminished effectiveness. Where are the cost savings then? Outsourcing should be used selectively and carefully - and always under the supervision of librarians. Outsourcing isn't a bad idea at all as long as it isn't seized upon as some kind of comprehensive and total solution. The more basic concern here isn't outsourcing, but determining of priorities and valuation of services provided by libraries and librarians. If top library managers are being increasingly recruited from outside of the library profession, it is logical that they might come to see cost saving as a "bottom line" and make decisions with less sensitivity to the value of the services which libraries and librarians provide. James B. Casey - My own views as a public library administrator and Member of ALA Council. ****** END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 7, No. 6 ****** END OF FILE ******