ACQNET v1n121 (October 24, 1991) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/serials/stacks/acqnet/acq-v1n121 ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 1, No. 121, October 24, 1991 ========================================= (1) FROM: Christian SUBJECT: Who's new on ACQNET today (13 lines) (2) FROM: Pamela Rose SUBJECT: Approval plans processing (12 lines) (3) FROM: Peter Stevens SUBJECT: Vendor tapes, approval plans processing (18 lines) (4) FROM: Pamela Rose SUBJECT: World Bank (17 lines) (5) FROM: Pamela Rose SUBJECT: Superseded BIPs (7 lines) (6) FROM: Tom Leonhardt SUBJECT: Superseded BIPs (17 lines) (7) FROM: Judith Niles SUBJECT: Superseded BIPs (14 lines) (8) FROM: Daniel Evans SUBJECT: Superseded BIPs (8 lines) (9) FROM: Christian SUBJECT: Directory errors, delivery errors (37 lines) (1) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: October 24, 1991 From: Christian Subject: Who's new on ACQNET today Lucien R. Rossignol Katy Ginanni Asst. Chief, Acq. Services Office Serials Acquisitions Librarian Smithsonian Institution Library Auburn University Library E-mail: LIBEM004@SIVM.BITNET E-mail: KATYG@DUCVAX.AUBURN.EDU Michael Coleman Serials Librarian LSU Medical Center Library E-mail: MCOLEM@NNOMED.BITNET (2) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1991 11:56 EDT From: Pamela Rose Subject: Approval plans processing Regarding approval processing, our records at the SUNY - Buffalo Health Sciences Library are both keyed and downloaded from OCLC. We have not yet used machine-readable data from Ballen, our major vendor, which they can supply on tapes or disks. I understand that BNA can also provide such data. When we key the information in, we ask our students to follow strict MARC formats, following a DLC printout from OCLC if NLM copy is not available for downloading. (3) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1991 08:22:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Peter Stevens Subject: Machine-readable data from vendors We load approval data for our US-Canadian and British approval programs via tapes from Blackwell North America and B.H. Blackwell, respectively. Last year, we input nearly 7,000 titles into our Geac system this way, mostly in the form of bibliographic data. We check these approval titles against our online acquisitions data base and cancel outstanding firm orders before the approval books arrive. We tried to load Harrassowitz tapes for our German plan but found that our editing of the records--in caps and replete with abbreviations, etc--was more trouble than inputting the records manually. So we do not use tape load for our German or scores approval programs but stick to the old-fashioned way. We do not download OCLC records, or records from our on-line catalog, into our acquisitions data base. (4) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1991 11:35 EDT From: Pamela Rose Subject: World Bank For acquiring World Bank publications we use Accents Publications Service, 911 Silver Spring Ave., #202, Silver Spring, MD 20910 301-588-5496. They cost a bit more, charge postage and include a surcharge in the document price, but they are based in the DC area, and tell me they have people who physically go to the agency/bookshop and buy the stuff. We've had good luck with them for the real problem items, and tend to use them for any societal stuff in that area. We also will buy direct whenever we can. In the past, since we are a New York State agency, our policy has been to use only contract-approved vendors, and we do this to minimize the number of checks written. However, we've found buying direct from many societies to be quicker and substantially cheaper over the long haul. (5) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1991 11:35 EDT From: Pamela Rose Subject: Superseded BIPs Regarding Wanda Dole's question about BIPs, we made a decision two years ago to keep only the current set. We offer our immediate past year set to hospital libraries or agencies which cannot afford to buy it every year. (6) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1991 16:22:10 EDT From: Tom Leonhardt Subject: Superseded BIPs Wanda Dole wants to know what to do with superseded _Books In Print_ volumes. Toss them. You have _Book Publishing Record_ and the _Cumulative Book Index_ for your historical record. One argument for saving BIP as a historical record is that you can go back and find out what you paid for it so you can bill a patron. The BIP price may or may not be accurate for that purpose but it probably doesn't help tell you the replacement price. There are more economical ways to determine such lost- charges. BIP seems to be one title that we hang on to because we think it is inherently valuable. I would like to hear how and why it is so valuable given the other bibliographical resources at our grasp. I vote for throwing them out for scrap. (7) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Oct 91 14:07:51 EDT From: Judith Niles SUBJECT: Old BIPs At the Uiversity of Louisville we have standing orders for 3 sets of BIP, one for the acquisitions/collection management area, one in the Reference collec- tion in the main library, and one in the Art Library. The most recent super- seded editions of two of the sets are transferred to the Music Library and the Circulation Department, after which they are discarded. The third superseded set goes to the stacks, where I doubt that they are used very much, except that I did use them on a consulting project for a law firm. A publisher was being sued by the author for non-payment of royalties, and the author's lawyers wanted a history of the listing on the books in question. Nonetheless, if we were to embark on a weeding project, I would recommend that they be withdrawn. (8) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Oct 91 11:24:55 EDT From: Daniel Evans Subject: Superseded _Books in Print_ In talking with the Bowker representative last year, it was suggested that we would probably want to retain the OP/OSI volumes produced each year. The new ones are not cumulative and should prove to be useful if retained for future reference. (9) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Oct 91 09:26:26 EDT From: Christian Subject: Directory errors, delivery errors A virtuoso of the keyboard I'm not. I type with two fingers, look at the keys instead of the screen, and often make mistakes, some crucial. Yesterday I inadvertently wiped out of my directory file one record that had 44 ACQNET names. Even with backups, recovering from this was not fun. I had to match all remaining names against a master list to find out who I had confined to electronic oblivion. In that process I found some interesting things. Two of you had duplicate listings, and three weren't there. You three haven't been receiving anything since you signed on. I have no idea who you are, but you should have told me that you weren't getting anything. Let me know if you want back issues. Which brings me to the subject of delivery errors. There isn't a week that passes by anymore that I don't get issues returned from some sites as undeliverable. The causes are varied: someone who changes jobs and his or her e-mail address at the old job becomes invalid; a recipient's system is shut down for a few days or hours (common during holiday weekends); a recipient's disk is full and incoming messages are refused. Except for systems being shut down I can rarely tell what the problem is and I can't afford to spend much time to spend on problems like this. When it happens, I try once to resend what was returned, either later that day or the next day, especially if it involves a weekend. Then I give up. The bottom line is, if you are suddenly not receiving anything, or there are gaps in the numbering of what you receive, there is a problem and you'd better get in touch with me. I will make sure that I haven't been hasty in my file maintenance practices, and will get back to you. I'll also send you whatever you missed if you want it and tell me what it is. Which leaves the question: How can you tell how long to wait before worrying about it? Since it started, ACQNET has averaged an issue every 2.6 days. We have gone as long as 7 days between issues. I plan to always warn you when there will be an interruption. (Look for one of those soon as Charleston is coming up.) So, if 10 days pass without you getting anything, you might let me know about it. ******* END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 1, No. 121 ****** END OF FILE *******