[Original posting on this topic is reproduced below; the response follows it.]
From: nladams <nladams_at_mailbox.syr.edu>
I'm doing some research on academic libraries' collection development policies
for national bibliographies. I found some articles from a while back
describing the advent of digital formats and their possible future affects,
but haven't found any recent information as to how the situation is working
out.
Are folks maintaining multiple formats? Is anyone phasing out print format for
digital? Any experiences, comments, pointers, or opinions are welcome!
Thanks much,
Nancy Adams
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(1) From: Bryan A Skib <bskib_at_umich.edu>
Yes, I would say that we're gradually phasing out print versions. In some
cases (e.g. France) this has been due to movement on the publisher side to
online only. We have reduced the frequency with which we receive some,
e.g. British. We have dropped some others due to lack of usefulness. As
natural as it seemed to hold on to nat'l bibs., I have been finding that
our catalogers do not need them, reference staff (and patrons) do not use
them, and very few staff use them for purposes of collection development.
Where staff are really on top of things, the most frequently published
version can be useful for selection, and paper is handy to write on -- so
in our case we still make use of the German nat'l bib. Cumulations seem
less valuable these days, esp. where the bib records appear in nat'l
library OPACs, among other places. Along the way, we did try some CD-ROM
versions, without much enthusiasm. The French CD-ROM offered some ways to
search not available from the (former) BNF OPAC, and even more, did a much
better job handling large result sets. In the end, the price was too high
for the insignificant amount of use we saw.
Bryan Skib
209 Hatcher Library
University of Michigan
Received on Tue Dec 07 2004 - 14:09:31 EST