ACQNET v7n035 (September 8, 1997) URL = http://www.infomotions.com/serials/acqnet/acqnet-v7n035 ISSN 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 7, No. 35, September 8, 1997 =========================================== (1) FROM: G. W. Gabbert SUBJECT: Rector Press, Ltd. (69 lines) (2) FROM: J. Montgomery and B. Nelson (2 postings) SUBJECT: RE: Acquisitions Librarians (80 lines) (3) FROM: R. Anderson and A. Finnegan (2 postings) SUBJECT: RE: Militia of Montana film (24 lines) (4) FROM: P. Stevens SUBJECT: RE: OP searches (27 lines) (1) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 15:29:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Gretchen W. Gabbert (National University, San Diego) Subject: Rector Press, Ltd. I am writing this to alert as many people as possible not to purchase items from Rector Press, Ltd. This is why: On August 6, 1997 we received the publication WORLD OUTLOOK 1997 prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit. We had ordered it from Rector Press because the only bibliographic information we had when we placed the order in the Fall of 1996 was that the publisher was Rector Press. We had no knowledge that it was originally from EIU. We only learned this when we had the publication in our hands and noticed that "Economist Intelligence Unit" was typed on every page. When the publication arrived our Acquisitions Specialist, Rose Elkins, showed me the title and asked me if I thought it was worth $795. Yes, that's what we paid for it, by pre-paid check. It is a paperback of 287 pages. A cursory review of the book did not reveal any particularly unique information. A lot of it is similar to what you would find in the EUROPA WORLD YEAR BOOK. The most curious thing about the book, however, was the fact that all of the imprint information had been obliterated by large gold foil labels bearing the name of Rector Press, including the order information on the tear-out cards at the back of the book. I decided to do a search in BIP to see what other titles EIU has in print. As of this date there are 91. They are all expensive. The WORLD OUTLOOK 1997 is not among them. I printed out the publisher information and called them pretending to be interested in acquiring the title. They are aware that it is not in BIP. The price from the publisher is $385! Alarm bells went off everywhere! Later in the day we decided to call EIU again and tell them about what happened to us. Annina Celli graciously gave Rose Elkins this information: Another customer reported a similar incident about one year ago. A report has been made to their corporate lawyer about Rector Press. The President of Rector Press, Lewis B. Sckolnick, has been selling this item under him name for some time. EIU does not know where he is getting their publications from but they suspect it is from a source in London. EIU's opinion is that this a scam pure and simple and they are trying to catch up with him. Annina Celli apologized for what happened to us. Rose Elkins actually called Rector Press and got him on the telephone. When she confronted him about his 100% mark-up price, he hung up on her. In addition to alerting you all about Rector Press, I believe it should be added to the Caveat Emptor List prepared by the Publisher/Vendor Library Relations Committee (ALCTS). FYI: ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT - Mailing address: 111 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019, Tel: (212) 554-0600, Fax: (212) 586-1181, Toll Free: (800) 938-4685. RECTOR PRESS, LTD. - Est. 1920 - Lewis B. Sckolnick, President, 130 Rattlesnake Gutter Rd., Leverett, MA 01054-9726, Tel: (413) 548-9708, Tax: (413) 367-2853, Toll Free: (800) 247-3473, Web site: www.rectorpress.com. Sincerely, Gretchen W. Gabbert Tel: (619) 563-7487 Acquisitions Librarian Fax: (619) 563-7392 National University Library 4007 Camino del Rio South E-mail: ggabbert@nunic.nu.edu San Diego, CA 92108 (2) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 08:43:42 -0600 From: Jack Montgomery (Univ. of Missouri - Columbia Law Library) Subject: RE: ACQNET 7:29 -Reply #1 of 2 I must admit a bit of shock when I read some of the postings regarding the bleak future of acquisitions positions. I recently returned from AALL in Baltimore and one of my great surprises was that there were more job postings for acquisitions positions than I've ever seen in my ten years as a professional. Maybe it's an anomaly of the law library world, but I don't think that's the case. I have been studying and writing about outsourcing for several years now and have come to the conclusion that there is much talk with little substance on this issue. We, at times seem to suffer from "Chicken Little's Disease" mistaking evangelization of the outsourcing movement for actual reality. Competent and informed administrators have realized that blanket outsourcing of technical services is viable to an organization only as an final act of fiscal desperation and an admission of the inability to manage the organizational environment and the processes of change. Often, outsourcing is an expedite method of ridding oneself of difficult personnel situations. In actuality, I do see a definite trend toward the reduction of clerical staff in libraries which means doing more with less. Now that is a familiar tune! On the other hand, I still observe a certain blindness within the profession to the fact that we must focus on working smart and cost effectively. By cost effectively, I mean that we must focus on the most expensive element in the workplace, our labor costs. We need to focus our energy on doing our work the best we are able while streamlining the workflow and trimming the excess. This is often tough to accomplish when it may mean weeding people who are not now or have ceased to be productive. For catalogers, it may mean allowing others to copy catalog in order to adopt to or bring down labor costs. For acquisitions, it may mean having catalogers do your verification and download your records. One way or another, we must eliminate unnecessary and costly expense in our daily workflow. As an example, in a recent meeting I was told of a library that manually checks the pagination on every book received or periodical bound. I thought to myself that they must have an enormous backlog or an enormous amount of extra time to spend in this manner. This is the kind of work practice that must change. If we expect our administrators to be able to defend our value to the organization, we are going to have to start acting like the businesses we are in actuality as well as making those in decision making positions aware of the services we do provide to the library organization. Well, that certainly is enough from me. I do enjoy the thoughtful dialogue that characterizes this column. Jack G. Montgomery Technical Services and Collection Management Librarian Law Library, University of Missouri-Columbia +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 09:17:53 +0000 (CST6CDT) From: Barbara Nelson (Auburn University) Subject: Re: Acquisitions Librarians (#2 of 2 postings) It seems to be that one of the problems with this identity crisis among Acquisitions librarians is that, of all the areas in the library, this varies the most from place to place. Some libraries have acquisitions and serials together, some have it separate. Some have all the verification and decision-making taking place in a Collection Development/Management section, and acquisitions is more clerical in nature. Some have much of that process taking place in Acquisitions, making it necessary to have some professionals or very high level staff. Outsourcing with Approval Plans has been in existance for a long time, but it is always monitored for quality by librarians and faculty. The outsourcing of the clerical processes is a newer idea and probably works if there is a high level of accuracy and attention to detail by the bibliographers/collection development staff. We need to be careful about making sweeping generalizations about the nature of acquisitions work because of all these variables. I get comments of shock about Auburn having 4 professionals in Acquisitions (Firm Order Librarian, Approval Librarian, Gifts & Exchange Librarian, and Dept. Head), but we have no collection development department. All verification and quality control happens in Acquisitions. Librarians and faculty do not review approval books unless the Approval Librarian identifies one as a potential problem. We have experienced librarians, 3 of whom have been catalogers and the other one has experience in several of Auburn's public service departments. I say all of this to emphasize the fact that Acquisitions varies widely in practice, as I am sure most of the ACQNET readers have discovered. I have met many acquisitions librarians and staff through professional associations and am still amazed at the multitude of factors differentiating one institution from another. Barbara K. Nelson Order Librarian Auburn University Libraries Auburn University AL 36849-5606 334-844-1721; FAX 334-844-4424 bnelson@lib.auburn.edu (3) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 08:02:11 -0400 From: Rick Anderson (Yankee Book Peddler) Subject: RE: ACQNET 7:30 (Militia of Montana film order) (#1 of 2 postings) Regarding Josie Williamson's difficulty in making purchase arrangements with the Militia of Montana: Josie, have you explored with your accounting department the possibility of using a library-issued check to purchase a money order, which could then be used to purchase the video? I don't know how flexible your accounting folks can be with things like this, but I'd imagine that they ought to be satisfied as long as they have a check stub and you can provide an unbroken paper trail for the purchase. Rick Anderson ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 07:52:11 -0700 (PDT) From: Anne Finnegan (U. Of Calif, Irvine) Subject: Re:Militia of Montana film (#2 of 2 postings) One obvious solution to the problem of how to acquire material from vendors who will not accept the usual forms of payments is to have those requesting these purchases buy the materials themselves and be reimbursed by the library. Anne Finnegan e-mail: alfinneg@uci.edu Acquisitions Department phone: 714-824-7316 University of California Library fax: 714-824-2059 Irvine, CA 92623-9556 To er is human . . . Alexander Pop (4) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 09:33:36 -0700 (PDT) From: Peter Stevens (U. of Washington) Subject: RE: OP searches In my ACQNET 7:28 posting on OP searches, I noted our experience with an 8% yield on OP searches with Blackwells. This yield was based on orders placed--and books received against those orders--within a fiscal year, reflecting data on hand at annual report time but neglecting the fact that successful OP searches typically take a good deal longer than one year. When I checked all OP searches placed from January 1994 to late August 1997, I found that our yield with Blackwells was 27%, with an average turnaround time of 44 weeks at an average cost per book of $45. Had I eliminated from this sample our OP searches of the past six months or year, our yield with Blackwells would be even higher. That said, I should note that my OP search procedures have changed since my posting on ACQNET 7:28. We now check all OP search requests in two OP search databases (both linked to this Acquisitions Division Website at http://weber.u.washington.edu/~acqdiv/): Bibliofind and Interloc. About half of all our potential OP searches have been found in the past few weeks in these databases, with requests for items sent out on e-mail to the individual OP dealer with the lowest quote for the copy in the best condition. Titles not found in these two databases are then sent to our usual OP vendors for exclusive OP searching for one year, with automatic supply if the title is under $75--Blackwells being our favorite. Peter H. Stevens Head, Acquisitions Division University of Washington Libraries Seattle, WA 98195-2900 ****** END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 7, No. 35 ****** END OF FILE ******