ALCTS Network News v2n13 (November 14, 1991) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/ann/ann-v2n13 ISSN: 1056-6694 ALCTS NETWORK NEWS An electronic publication of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services Volume 2, Number 13 November 14, 1991 In this issue JOHN P. COMAROMI DIES RETROCON IG TO PLAN FUTURE PROGRAMS TIME TO VOLUNTEER FOR ALCTS COMMITTEES PEGGY JOHNSON TO EDIT GUIDE TO TECHNICAL SERVICES RESOURCES LOS ANGELES LIBRARY COMMISSION SUPPORTS REPEAL OF MAGAZINE TAX UNITED NATIONS RECORDS NOW IN RLIN UPDATE NO. 1 TO USMARC FORMAT FOR HOLDINGS DATA PUBLISHED ************************************************************************** JOHN P. COMAROMI DIES John P. Comaromi, Editor of the Dewey Decimal Classification, died suddenly on November 6, 1991, at his home in Bethesda, MD. Dr. Comaromi served as Editor of the Dewey Decimal Classification from 1980 until his death. From 1980 until 1987 he also served as Chief of the Decimal Classification Division at the Library of Congress. His term as editor was characterized by an intense concern for user convenience and understanding. That concern was reflected in the most recent edition of the Classification (DDC 20), in the more than forty-five workshops which he conducted, and in his work on the Manual on the Use of the Dewey Decimal Classification: Edition 19, which he co-authored with Margaret Warren and the Assistant Editors. Prior to his appointment as Editor, he taught at the library schools of the University of California at Los Angeles, Western Michigan University, and the University of Oregon. He was the author of several books and numerous journal articles on the Dewey Decimal Classification. His books included The Eighteen Editions of the Dewey Decimal Classification (1976); Exercises in the 20th Edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification (with M.P. Satija, 1990); and Dewey Decimal Classification, 20th Edition: A Study Manual (with Jean Osborn, 1991). Dr. Comaromi received his doctorate in library science from the School of Information and Library Studies at the University of Michigan in 1969. He was honored as a distinguished alumnus of the School in 1990. Memorial contributions may be made to the John P. Comaromi Scholarship Fund, School of Information and Library Studies, University of Michigan, 550 East University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. A Memoriam will appear in the next issue of LRTS. ************************************************************************* RETROCON IG TO PLAN FUTURE PROGRAMS The ALCTS/LITA Retrospective Conversion Interest Group will meet on Sunday, January 26, 1992 from 2-4:00 p.m. to discuss the upcoming annual meeting in San Francisco next June on "How to apply for funding for recon." The upcoming LITA National Conference will also be discussed. The topic for that conference will be: "Retrospective Conversion Basics--what you need to do when you plan for a recon project in your library." There will also be an informal discussion of retrospective conversion (questions and answers) during the Midwinter meeting. Please come with any questions you have. For more information contact: Mitch Turitz, Serials Librarian, San Francisco State University; Internet: TURITZ@SFSUVM.SFSU.EDU ************************************************************************* TIME TO VOLUNTEER FOR ALCTS COMMITTEES There are nearly 1300 committee positions available in ALCTS. With only a few of these being "ex officio" in nature (that is the Chair of X Committee also serves on Y Committee) and some others being elective, the fact remains that ALCTS needs many, many of its members to volunteer to fill these committee positions. The ALCTS Committee Volunteer form was printed on page 70 of Volume 2, Number 6 of the _ALCTS Newsletter_. It is also available from ALCTSERV. Back issues of AN2, reports forms, and other important ALCTS documents such as the PVLR complaint form, are available through this listserver. To find out what's available, send the following command to LISTSERV@UICVM: send alcts filelist The ALCTS FILELIST contains the list of files with the EXACT filename and filetype. To get a particular file, issue this command to the LISTSERV@UICVM: send filename filetype. For example, to retrieve the volunteer form, do one of the following: TELL LISTSERV@UICVM SEND VOLUNTER FORM or send a note to LISTSERV@UICVM with the text SEND VOLUNTER FORM. (Yes, volunter form.) The volunteer form may be returned to the ALCTS Office (use u34261@uicvm, fax: 312-280-3257, or actual mail: ALCTS, 50 E. Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611). You may also forward it directly to the appointing officer of your choice: ALCTS VICE-PRESIDENT/PRESIDENT-ELECT LIZ BISHOFF LJB@RSCH.OCLC.ORG ALMS CHAIR CAROL CHAMBERLAIN CEC@PSULIAS CCS VICE-CHAIR BARBARA TILLETT BTILLETT@UCSD CMDS VICE-CHAIR DAVID FARRELL DFARRELL@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU PLMS VICE-CHAIR LORRAINE OLLEY OLLEY@UCS.INDIANA.EDU RLMS VICE-CHAIR JUTTA REED-SCOTT BB.JRS@RLG.BITNET SS VICE-CHAIR MARY CASE MCASE@NUACVM ************************************************************************* PEGGY JOHNSON TO EDIT GUIDE TO TECHNICAL SERVICES RESOURCES Peggy Johnson, assistant director, St. Paul Campus Libraries at the University of Minnesota, has been named editor of a new ALA publishing project, the "Guide to Technical Services Resources." A basic volume with periodic updates, the "GSTR" will debut in 1993 to help lead practitioners, educators and students to the most important new information in the areas of technical services. The guide will track sources and organize them for easier, systematic access. While continuing in her post at the University of Minnesota, Johnson will oversee the work of 15 section editors in preparing the ongoing professional resource. An advisory body will be appointed with the help of ALA's technical services groups--including ALCTS. The guide will have chapter introductions and annotations and will describe as well as cite resources, drawing on all formats, including electronic. Certain fundamental works will be represented, but the emphasis will be on contemporary materials, data and resource networks. Among the technical services areas to be covered are: acquisitions, descriptive cataloging, classification, subject analysis, authority work, filing and indexing, serials management, collection management and development, preservation, reproduction of library materials, communications formats and circulation control. Systems will be treated within the appropriate areas. Individuals interested in contributing to the guide in any professional capacity should contact Peggy Johnson, St. Paul Campus Libraries, University of Minnesota, 1984 Buford Ave., St. Paul, MN 55108. Areas of special expertise and background should be noted. ************************************************************************* LOS ANGELES LIBRARY COMMISSION SUPPORTS REPEAL OF MAGAZINE TAX The City of Los Angeles Board of Library Commissioners voted unanimously today to adopt a resolution calling for the repeal of the California magazine sales tax by supporting Senate Bill 267, introduced this fall by Senator Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco). SB 267 will be heard in the legislature in January, 1992. Norman Ridker, a Los Angeles-based publisher and chairman of a California coalition known as STOP (Stop Taxation of Publications), urged the Library Commission to back the passage of SB 267 and to alert other library commissions and support groups around the state to rally around this important cause. "We are discussing a very serious amount of money," Ridker said. "This tax will cost the public and state-run university libraries more than $4 million annually and the Los Angeles city libraries $82,000 every year." "The role of libraries in our society, the free and open dissemination of information and entertainment and the best interests of millions of California magazine readers are at stake here," Ridker said. "The State of California, in seeking to increase its tax revenues, ends up raising the operating expenses of its own libraries, which are already struggling under budget constraints that are forcing painful cuts in their ability to serve the public," he said. The Los Angeles city library system subscribes to approximately 26,000 magazine titles a year, costing more than $1 million. It is estimated that tax on these periodicals could cost up to $82,000 per year. "There are three things in this country that should not be taxed; food, medicine and knowledge," said Library Commissioner Douglas Ring. "Knowledge must not be taxed." STOP is a recently-formed coalition of representatives from the magazine publishing industry and related industries and groups, which are adversely impacted by the newly imposed magazine tax. As noted in the October 24 issue of AN2 (Vol. 2, no. 13) ALCTS intends to work diligently on this issue until all existing laws are repealed and to ensure that similar legislation in other states does not prevail. Please communicate any further information you may have about developments in your state to Karen Muller, Executive Director, ALCTS, 50 E. Huron Street, Chicago IL 60611 (Bitnet: u19466@uicvm.bitnet). ************************************************************************* UNITED NATIONS RECORDS NOW IN RLIN More than 312,000 bibliographic records from the United Nations' Dag Hammarskjold Library have been loaded into RLIN, the information network of the Research Libraries Group (RLG). RLIN provides the only widely available online access to this material; in the past it was necessary to use printed indexes to locate UN publications. The bibliographic records, dating back to 1979, include citations to documents and proceedings of the General Assembly, Security Council, International Court of Justice, UN Secretariat, and other UN bodies, and to the many other international documents and publications received and held by the Dag Hammarskjold Library. These records are an excellent resource for the study of international events. Later this fall, the files of 1,000 serials and 500 map records will also be loaded into RLIN. The records being loaded come from UNBIS (the United Nations Bibliographic Information System) and represent two large UNBIS files --DOCFILE and CATFILE--whose print equivalents are UNDOC: CURRENT INDEX and the monthly CURRENT BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION. The UN will provide quarterly updates for loading into RLIN. For more information about the UN records and the RLIN database, please contact the RLIN Information Center, Research Libraries Group, e-mail BL.RIC@RLG.BITNET or BL.RIC@RLG.STANFORD.EDU. ************************************************************************* UPDATE NO. 1 TO USMARC FORMAT FOR HOLDINGS DATA PUBLISHED UPDATE NO. 1 TO USMARC FORMAT FOR HOLDINGS DATA is now available from the Cataloging Distribution Service of the Library of Congress. This is the first update to the restructured and revised USMARC Holdings Format, which was issued in December 1989 and replaced the earlier title, USMARC Format for Holdings and Locations. Update No.1 contains additions and changes to the USMARC Holdings Format resulting from proposals considered by the ALA ALCTS/LITA/RASD Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information Committee (MARBI) at its June 1990 and January 1991 meetings. UPDATE NO. 1 TO USMARC FORMAT FOR HOLDINGS DATA is $20 (North American) or $22 (International) and may be ordered from the Library of Congress, Cataloging Distribution Services, Customer Services Section, Washington, DC 20541-5017; Telephone (202) 707-6100; FAX (202) 707-1334 ************************************************************************* ************************************************************************* ALCTS NETWORK NEWS (ISSN 1056-6694) is published irregularly by the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, a division of the American Library Association. Editorial offices: ALCTS, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611; Arnold Hirshon, President; Karen Muller, Executive Director. Editor: Karen Muller (u34261@uicvm); Editorial Assistance: Alex Bloss, Andrea Wiley. ALCTS NETWORK NEWS is available free of charge and is available only in electronic form. Opinions expressed in the articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the division. News items should be sent to the editor at Bitnet address u34261@uicvm. To subscribe, issue the network command "tell listserv@uicvm sub alcts [your account] [your name]." ALCTS NETWORK NEWS is also available on ALANET through the PUBS menu or the command ALANET4. Back issues of AN2 are available through the listserver. To find out what's available, send the following command to LISTSERV@UICVM: send alcts filelist The ALCTS FILELIST contains the list of files with the EXACT filename and filetype. To get a particular file, issue this command to the LISTSERV@UICVM: send filename filetype. Send questions about membership in ALCTS to the ALCTS Office, u34261@uicvm. All materials in the newsletter subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for the noncommercial purpose of scientific or education advancement granted by Sections 107 and 108 of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976. For other reprinting or redistribution or translations, address requests to the ALA Office of Rights and Permissions, 50 E. Street, Chicago, IL 60611. *************************************************************************