ACQNET v5n023 (July 14, 1995) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/serials/stacks/acqnet/acqnet-v5n023 ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 5, No. 23, July 14, 1995 ======================================= (1) FROM: Eleanor Cook, ACQNET editor SUBJECT: REMINDER: ALA reports (10 lines) (2) FROM: ACQNET Editorial Board SUBJECT: Press releases from commercial companies (45 lines) (3) FROM: Nancy Gibbs SUBJECT: ALA LAMA Acquisitions meeting report (64 lines) (4) FROM: Nancy Slight-Gibney SUBJECT: ALA report: Acquisitions Administrators DG (41 lines) (5) FROM: Curt Rice SUBJECT: Gale Catalogs (14 lines) (1)---------------------------------------------------------------- FROM: Eleanor Cook, ACQNET Editor REMINDER! If you submitted an announcement to ACQNET about an ALA meeting of relevance to acquisitions, you have a sworn duty to find someone to report about that meeting if it is worth reporting. There were some excellent meetings held last year that were not reported. There are many people who read ACQNET who will NEVER get to attend ALA and want to know what happened. Help us out and find someone to send a *brief* report to ACQNET. Any and all will be appreciated! (2)--------------------------------------------------------------- FROM: The ACQNET Editorial Board SUBJECT: Commercial press releases on ACQNET The ACQNET Editorial Board discussed the topic of commercial press releases recently. There has always been a policy statement in ACQNET's welcome message that we do not allow advertising on ACQNET. However, with the development of ACQflashes, we have the ability to get timely announcements out to readers without devoting space to them in the regular issues. Because of this, and because there has been a steady rise in the commercial sector's presence on the Internet, we have questions about the appropriateness of various types of press releases. When does a press release constitute advertising? In the recent past, we have allowed an occasional press release when the information focused on a new product (such as the introduction of an electronic publication or service when it was a new or unique venture for that company); major personnel changes (such as when someone well-known in the field was appointed to a major management position); commercial buy-outs of major companies; and so forth. But these have been few and far between and were the exception and not the rule. Recently, the editor refused a press release from a company celebrating a many-year anniversary, since the release did not tell us anything new about the company other that it had survived (worthy in itself, but not relevant to ACQNET). There have been others held since then waiting to get this issue discussed widely on the list, so apologies to anyone caught in the middle. We would like our colleagues from both the non-profit and profit sector to please jump in and help us consider this issue. ACQNET is a valuable resource to librarians who work in the acquisitions field, but we cannot afford to allow incessant advertising to creep into the list and eventually overwhelm us. This is why we are asking for input before formulating any further distinctions in the non-advertising policy. In striving to be fair, we do not want to either be too lax or too strict. Not an easy hair to split these days. One solution that has been suggested has been to put all press releases from commercial companies, regardless of content, into a section of _AcqWeb_, where they could reside for a time and then be cycled out. Also, since many companies are mounting their own web sites these days, they can be linked to _AcqWeb_ and then they can advertise on their own site to their heart's content and we can go looking for them when we wish. This seems like a reasonable avenue to consider. All thoughtful replies from subscribers are welcome. (3)--------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 06 Jul 1995 11:07:50 -0400 From: Nancy Gibbs (NC State U.) Subject: ALA LAMA Acquisitions program report The LAMA SASS Acquisitions Systems Committee sponsored a very effective program "Why EDI: What managers need to know about electronic data interchange," during the 1995 ALA Annual Meeting. Speakers were Freidemann Weigel, Harrassowitz; Brian Green, Book Industry Communication; Joan Griffith, Chair of SISAC and Director of Library Technology, University of New Mexico; and John Fitts, Ebsco Industries. Reactors were: Bruce Compton, VTLS; and Sylvia Cornell, Jacksonville Public Library, Florida. Weigel, Green, and Griffith related how EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) has been developing in Europe, England, and the United States, respectively. Each noted that American libraries are less advanced in using EDI than those in England or on the continent. The advantages of using EDI are: a significant reduction in time spent rekeying data; acceleration of the business process, reduction in costs for postage, reduction in mistakes, and decrease in administrative overhead. All agreed that staff could do many other less onerous tasks and be more productive when EDI was incorporated into the acquisitions process of ordering, receiving, claiming, and invoicing. Each speaker urged the audience to encourage their library administrators and their systems vendors to incorporate EDI into the daily accounting functions of acquisitions departments before it was imposed upon them from their business offices with no input from the library community. John Fitts related his experiences using EDI in a business partnership with a large, US retail chain. He also detailed many of the related management functions his company was able to accomplish with data furnished from the use of EDI. As reactors, Compton and Cornell related how an ILS vendor and a library administrator could incorporate EDI into their positions of responsibility. Compton urged libraries to push their ILS vendors to incorporate EDI into acquisitions modules while Compton noted that some governmental agencies look upon a strictly paperless financial transaction with skepticism. She urged the audience to work closely with their accounting departments to overcome these perceptions. All of the papers presented will be published within the next year; an announcement of where and when the papers will be available will be forthcoming. In the meantime the program was taped and is available from ALA. This program was co-sponsored by the ALCTS Acquisitions Section , Acquisitions Organization and Management Committee, supported by SISAC and sponsored in name only by the ALCTS, Acquisitions Committee of the Serials Section. Handouts from the meeting included a glossary of SISAC selected acronyms, an EDI bibliography of current readings on the topic, and an abstract of a paper entitled: "The significance of EDI for the acquisitions process, " by Margot Wiesner. In other news, the Committee discussed plans for a program entitled Managing Acquisitions in a Changing Environment: From Coping to Comfort, to be presented in New York next summer. Also discussed were possible program topics for the joint LITA/LAMA program in Pittsburgh in October, 1996. (4)--------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 06 Jul 1995 12:16:05 -0700 (PDT) From: Nancy Slight-Gibney (Univ. of Oregon) Subject: Meeting Report from ALA, Acquisitions Administrators DG Report from the ACQUISITIONS ADMINISTRATORS DISCUSSION GROUP, meeting at the ALA Annual Conference, June 25, 1995. A brief business meeting was held to introduce Kay Granskog, Michigan State University, as the new chair of the group. Lisa German, Wright State University, was elected Vice-Chair/Chair Elect. Nancy Slight-Gibney, current Chair, opened the discussion on the topic of "Just-in-Time Services in Acquisitions: Rush Ordering, Interlibrary Loan, and Document Delivery". Rush: A number of participants described their rush ordering process which often involves calling vendors or publishers to see what can be delivered quickly. Rush ordering is a valuable but labor intensive and expensive process. Identifying levels of "rush" and "priority" helps to limit the number of "super rush" orders to just those where there is truly an urgent need. It is crucial to get back to the requestor if the item can not be obtained quickly. An institutional credit card or procurement card can facilitate acquiring material directly from publishers or local bookstores. Several librarians reported very positive results using a procurement card. Typically a rush process can be expected to take a week to ten days. The number of rush requests an acquisition department receives will be higher if the overall technical services through-put time is slow. It is also expected that the number of rush requests will go up if the monograph acquisitions budget shrinks. ILL: No one reported a truly merged acquisitions and interlibrary loan department. One of the barriers to this is that interlibrary loan is typically located in public services, so divisional as well as departmental boundaries have to come down. Some librarians reported experience with using acquisitions staff to help out in ILL or other public service desks. This was seen as good for staff development, particularly for staff who normally would not have a lot of contact with library operations outside of acquisitions (e.g. invoice processors). With an increasing use of commercial document suppliers by ILL departments there may be more of an affinity between ILL and Serials departments. Having ILL requests for current monographic imprints routed to acquisitions for rush purchase instead of borrowing was seen as a viable option if a librarian reviewed the requests to ensure that the purchase was appropriate to the collection. (5)--------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 07 Jul 1995 11:40:28 -0400 From: Curt Rice (N. Illinois U.) Subject: Gale Catalogs We receive far more catalogs and announcements from Gale Research than from any other publisher. I would like to know if any libraries treat Gale catalogs and announcements in any special way due to their sheer volume and frequency. Do you keep them, forward them, or toss them? Curt Rice Acquisitions Department Northern Illinois University ****** END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 5, No. 23, ****** END OF FILE ******