From: John Yelverton <JYELVERT_at_uga.cc.uga.edu>
THE 1997 NORTH AMERICAN TITLE COUNT:
INFORMATION AND A CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS
The North American Title Count (NATC), last done in 1993, is scheduled
to be taken in the Summer of 1997, with publication planned for distribution
early in 1998. The Title Count is sponsored by the ALCTS Collection Management
and Development Section, Quantitative Measures for Collection Management
Committee, Subcommittee on the North American Title Count.
Former participants and other interested libraries are invited to join
the project by filling out a "Statement of Intent to Participate" and
returning it by April 30, 1997. If your library does not receive the "State-
ment of Intent..." early in April, the form, which can be copied, will be
found on the Web at http://www.libs.uga.edu/natc/natc97.htm.
*There will be no paper product in 1997,* other than accompanying
introductory material and some suggestions for use. Instead, the data will
be supplied on disk, in an ASCII comma delimited file. This type of file
can be easily imported into several standard spreadsheets, and will enable
the users of the Count to easily manipulate the data and customize it for
their own library's needs. It will also be possible to read the file
with a viewer such as Adobe Acrobat. In the material accompanying the
disk there will be examples of the kinds of spreadsheets that might be used,
and instructions for using the data with those packages.
The cost to participate in the 1997 Count is based on an estimated 65
members. The cost-per-individual institution will be $600, and will
include one copy of the final product. ALCTS will bill participating
libraries in September 1997. Non-participating libraries will be able
to purchase a copy of the Count; the price will be set by ALCTS at a later
date.
The Library Research Center (LRC) at the University of Illinois will
mail the data collection packages, including detailed instructions, early
in May, 1997, to libraries returning the Intent to Participate form. The
LRC will collect and process the data and provide the final report for 1997,
as it has done for previous counts. Data collection may be accomplished
either by manual or machine count, or by a combination of both methods.
Institutions producing a count from an automated system should be able to
submit that system's report online rather than having to transfer the
information to worksheets. A Web interface will also be available for
reporting data. The count should be taken between June 1 and July 30.
The intent is to produce, insofar as is possible, a count reflecting
titles held on July 1.
The call number range list for 1997 includes 14 changes or expansions
from the 1993 LC call number range list and 2 new ranges. Libraries
needing to do pre-programming, or to compare the list with the one they
used in 1993, should send an e-mail message to natc97_at_alexia.lis.uiuc.edu,
or call Diane LaBarbera at LRC at (217) 333-1980 to obtain the new list of
call number ranges.
A Dewey/LC equivalency table, based upon the 19th edition of Dewey,
was made available to Dewey libraries for the 1993 Count. That table will
be made available again to libraries that request it in order to
participate in the 1997 Count. It does not reflect any changes corresponding
to call number ranges changed in 1993, or those changed in 1997. With
those caveats, the table can be obtained from the ALCTS Office by calling
Beatrice Calvin at 800-545-2433, ext. 5036, or e-mailing her at
bcalvin_at_ala.org.
The first National Shelflist Count was taken in 1973 with 17 participants.
In 1993, as the North American Title Count, data was collected from 56
libraries, including all four national libraries. The Count has come to
be accepted as an important, standard tool for collection analysis.
For further information, contact John Yelverton (University of Georgia)
at (706) 542-0621; e-mail: jyelvert_at_uga.cc.uga.edu.
Received on Mon Apr 21 1997 - 17:42:59 EDT