ACQNET v1n068 (May 5, 1991) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/serials/stacks/acqnet/acq-v1n068 ACQNET, Vol 1, No. 68, May 5, 1991 ================================== (1) FROM: Richard Jasper SUBJECT: Acquisitions/Collection development, ALCTS, Y'all (136 lines) (1) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 05 May 91 14:24:50 EDT From: Richard Jasper Subject: Acq & Coll Mgmt A few thoughts, while I sit here on (a dreary) Sunday afternoon waiting for DOBIS to come back up, on Christian's query regarding the state of the rela- tionship between acquisitions and collection management: 1. When the two functions became discrete, it seems to me a certain amount of tension between acquisitions and collection management was automatically pre-ordained. I agree that it is often exarcerbated by the hoity-toityness some selector/bibliographer/collection managers can take on, and that hoity-toityness may be traceable in part to who controls the budget. But I think the cause for tension is more basic than that and it has to do with differences of opinion over what is important. Acquisitions folks are necessarily production-oriented. All those thousands of orders have to be placed, claimed or cancelled, received and paid for, day in and day out, week after week, month after month. Efficiency of procedures and adherence to them are highly important. Collection managers, on the other hand, even though they deal with large volumes of work, are primarily concerned with making decisions about individual items -- whether to add, whether to drop, which format to employ, which fund to use. This concern for the individual decision, even when it occurs within a macro policy framework, often seems to engender among selectors a blithe indifference to procedure and detail, a "well, I've made the decision, you'll take of everything else, won't you?" attitude. Having been on both sides of the fence, I'm apt to be forgiving, except when the inattention is so great that a selector is no longer capable of articulating what he or she really wants, then gets testy when questioned more closely. 2. It's interesting that Christian should bring up the "power of the purse" argument. I think it's impact on acquisitions/collection management relationships must vary widely. Here at Emory, for example, the Director of Technical Services retained final say on fiscal year-end activities regarding the materials budget even after a separate Collection Management Division was created. That arrangement, as you can imagine, DID result in fair amount of tension. Now that the formerly separate Collection Management and Technical Services division have been merged, there's no question: the new division director (formerly director of Collection Management) makes the decisions. Even so, Acquisitions -- and I'm sure this is the case at other institutions, as well -- plays a very major role in the budget process. We're responsible, for one thing, for providing the weekly fund report that collection managers must use in assessing how the budget year is progressing. Moreover, we're the ones who process the invoices to send over to University Accounts Payable for payment. Decisions made in Collection Management regarding the budget must be coordinated with Acquisitions to make sure they can be accommodated. In both cases, by providing information on the one hand and needed follow-through service on the other, Acquisitions demonstrates its importance in the greater collection management process. 3. We've talked a lot over the last few weeks about the merging of acquisitions and serials functions, but what about the reconvergence of acquisitions and collection management? As I noted in number 2, we've already seen here at Emory the merger of formerly separate divisions of Technical Services and Collection Management. The merger happened partly because our first search for a new Tech Svcs director was unsuccessful, partly because the salary savings allowed us to consider a few new positions at lower levels, but mostly because -- thanks to implementation of DOBIS Acquisitions -- we were already having to work very closely across division lines to come up with new workflow patterns. Even with the merger, we're still organized along fairly traditional lines. Acquisitions (searching, ordering, claiming/cancelling, receiving/paying) and Collection Management (selecting, weeding, collection evaluation, policy development, etc.) functions are still separate, even though they occur (primarily) within the same division. But that seems to be changing elsewhere, doesn't it? Bernard Jubb, Acquisitions Librarian at the University of Liverpool (England), which also uses DOBIS, reported at the International DOBIS Users Group meeting in Liverpool in September 1989 that some of the traditional acquisitions functions (e.g., vendor selection, order inputting) were being farmed out to the collection management staff, the result of using an integrated library system. In that sense the functions seem to be reconverging, even though the "who does it" actually seems more diffuse. That scenario is never likely to be replayed here, mostly because the majority of our selectors already have additional responsibilities (usually reference). And because we operate in a shared system environment, with the computing center folks supervising the output from five administratively separate libraries, further diffusing responsibility for order generating would be a logistical nightmare. What have other people heard? 4. Which brings us back, once again, to the question of separate divisions in ALCTS for collection management, acquisitions, and, while we're at it, serials. I think the first thing to keep in mind is that organizational issues on the homefront do not necessarily translate the same way when you're dealing with a very different setting, as is the case with ALA and ALCTS. It's quite possible for a merger of technical services and collection management to make sense at Emory but NOT for ALCTS. Earlier this spring, Ross Atkinson did an excellent job of outlining the problems and constraints RS CMDC faced because, being a committee, it couldn't grow any more. A new section makes sense. But all this talk of merging acquisitions and serials departments in the larger libraries causes one to wonder: Do we still need separate acquisitions and serials sections, if acquisitions of materials is a primary component of the latter section? Wouldn't it make sense for ALMS, as RS is to be renamed, be an acquisitions section for all formats? And, likewise, shouldn't there be a place for serials in CCS? Before you start pencilling me in for a date with the guillotine (I'm sure, by now, this appeals to many of you) let me say that I'm playing devil's advocate here. I've been informed in no uncertain terms by one long-term SS member that trying to subdivide and merge SS with the two other divisions would result in mass defections from ALCTS. "Isn't that why all the collection management folks went to RASD? Because they felt like orphans?" Maybe, maybe not. What do y'all think? P.S. Since ALA will be in Atlanta this summer, I thought a short discourse on "y'all" would be appropriate. "Y'all" (never "ya'll") is the contraction for "you all," which is a lot like "you guys." It's a plural construction, meaning "all of you people to whom I'm talking right here and now." It is NEVER singular, which is the most common mistake Yankees (e.g., anyone from the United States who doesn't live in the South, whether from Maine, North Dakota, or California...) make when using this expression. ***** END OF FILE ***** END OF FILE ***** END OF FILE ***** END OF FILE *****