ACQNET v2n018 (February 6, 1992) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/serials/stacks/acqnet/acq-v2n018 ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 2, No. 18, February 6, 1992 ======================================== (1) FROM: Christian SUBJECT: Who's new on ACQNET today (8 lines) (2) FROM: John Piety SUBJECT: Acquisitions profession, acquisitions education (23 lines) (3) FROM: Lynne Branch SUBJECT: Library education (13 lines) (4) FROM: Karen Schmidt SUBJECT: Library education (19 lines) (5) FROM: Ann O'Neill SUBJECT: Library education, library school students on ACQNET (11 lines) (6) FROM: Stephen Marine SUBJECT: Library school students on ACQNET (12 lines) (7) FROM: Steve Murden SUBJECT: Library school students on ACQNET (10 lines) (8) FROM: Lynne Brown SUBJECT: African approval plans (6 lines) (9) FROM: Joann Crocker SUBJECT: Burt Franklin, Publisher (6 lines) (10) FROM: Richard Jasper SUBJECT: Firm order returns (31 lines) (11) FROM: Christian SUBJECT: ACQNET to stop for a few days (6 lines) (1) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: February 6, 1992 From: Christian Subject: Who's new on ACQNET today Lois Roelse Student Univ. of Kentucky College of Library & Info. Science E-mail: LSROEL00@UKCC.UKY.EDU (2) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1992 05:46 EST From: John Piety Subject: Acquisitions profession, acquisitions education In answer to Barbara Boissonnas and Jim Logue, I reply that professional is defined as always, by an attitude that is professional. Note I avoid the word professionalism. If a university administration will not allow the library director to recognize a professional attitude through pay and other incentives, that is a problem with the administration. Or do you mean that fellow workers in the library refuse to acknowledge excellence in accomplishment and attitude; preferring instead to look for credentials of a certain sort? As to the esoteric and arcane knowledge of the acquisitions field, it can be taught, and learned, in library school, with the right instructor. The acquisitions course I took spent one week on selection, ten weeks on publish- ing, history of publishing, domestic and foreign book trade and problems with suppliers. The remaining time was spent on forms and processing job flows, and preparing for automated processes. The course was taught by a degreed librari- an who had spent a number of years as an acquisitions librarian. However, he spent a lifetime in the book trade, both working in and owning bookstores; more than a dozen years in publishing; and a good deal of traveling to different countries in search of books and authors. No amount of experience in one library processing incoming items could equal that education. (3) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1992 09:37 EST From: Lynne Branche Brown Subject: Acquisitions profession In response to Barbara Boissonnas' question whether library school unlocks neurons (and thus give MLS'd acquisitions people an advantage)... For me, there is something about studying the profession as a whole and "in theory" as you do in library school, that gives perspective and a context to all that I do as I _practice_ librarianship. I think library school is more than just learning "how to do it good". It also provides the opportunity to do the thinking about it that Joyce Ogburn recently advocated. From that, comes a different perspec- tive. Maybe a broader perspective than I would have if I had not been to library school in addition to working in libraries. (4) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Feb 1992 10:16:04 CST From: Karen Schmidt Subject: Library education I just want to reassure Barbara Boissonnas that the M.L.S. did not unlock any of MY brain cells - and I'm sure I'm not alone. The M.L.S. is the rite of passage for librarianship, though, and I think we need to respect it and nurture it and see if we can't make it better. Having the degree as your ticket to the show isn't specific to librarianship. Attorneys regularly grieve over people who practice law without the proper credentials. There are lots of aspects of librarianship that are not exclusive or mysterious, and I don't want to snub any of our colleagues who don't boast the degree - just encourage you to think about getting the M.L.S. Eventually, maybe, we'll stop worrying about our value, and the value of our schooling - maybe then we, too, can makes scads of money, play golf on Wednesday afternoon, and be reviled by society, just like our friends, the attorneys....I would also like to point out that what my M.L.S. lacked, my Ph.D. program more than made up for - it was challenging and stimulating, and all through the program I kept thinking, "Now THIS is what the M.L.S. should be...." (5) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 06 Feb 92 12:33 From: Ann O'Neill Subject: Library education, library school students on ACQNET I am very glad to see the library school students signing up for ACQNET. It's something I wish had been in existence when I was getting my MLS just 2 years ago. This past summer one of my students used AUTOCAT to get information for a paper on the interactions between public and technical services. I imagine ACQNET could be used for similar questions. I learn a great deal from ACQNET, and have met a lot of nice people in the process too. Welcome to the students! Enjoy, speak up and ask questions. (6) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1992 07:52 EST From: Stephen Marine Subject: Student subscribers I am thrilled to see Miko Pattie encouraging and now requiring her library school students to subscribe to ACQNET, both for her reasons and for this additional one: it will demonstrate to a growing body of students that technical services is a vibrant, exciting career, pursued by many creative people. We are all aware of the dwindling pool of applicants for technical services jobs every time we advertize a position. With Miko and others encour- aging their students to become electronically active while still students, all our futures will be brighter. (7) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1992 17:06 EDT From: Steve Murden Subject: Library school students on ACQNET I also welcome the addition of library school students to ACQNET. Since I am only an "interim" acquisitions librarian, I find much useful information on this list. I also enjoy the philosophical discussions, especially since my job does not allow time for much more than putting out brush fires. The new student participants should add an interesting dimension to these discussions, because they are already in that thinking mode. (8) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1992 09:02 EST From: Lynne Branche Brown Subject: African Approval Vendors We are working on starting up an approval plan for African publications and would like to know who others are using. We've been looking at Hogarth and Leishman & Taussig in the UK. Are others receiving African books on approval from these vendors? Do you use them both? I understand that Hogarth handles one side of the continent and L&T the other, so to get complete coverage we'd need to have plans with both of them. Is that true? (9) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 6 Feb 92 08:36:00 CST From: Joann Crocker Subject: Burt Franklin, Publisher Does anyone know what has happened to this publisher? Mail is returned, and phone calls are unanswered. (10) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 06 Feb 92 12:24:05 EST From: Richard Jasper Subject: Returns I passed Margie Axtmann's query about firm order returns to my Accounting Unit supervisor, Janet Cooke, who not only has handled our returns for five years but worked in a major Atlanta bookstore before we had the good fortune to nab her. Her opinions, which I share, are fairly on track with those offered by Janet Flowers et al.: My philosophy about returns pretty well matches the author's, and is based on my retail experience as well as library experience. In retail, returns were used as a way of avoiding making responsible, informed buying decisions, ("We can always return it if it doesn't sell") an approach which I believe contributed to the rapid rise in book costs (along with many other factors of course). This has left me with a fairly deep seated "ethical" aversion to unnecessary returns. From my experience here, I have found that the staff (& postage) costs of processing returns is often prohibitive, but these costs might be reduced if returns were recognized as part of the process and handled in a more systematic fashion than I have seen. To the considerations outlined in the ACQNET note I would also add limiting returns to items expensive enough to justify the cost investment, including processing the return itself and follow-up activity often necessary regarding credits for returns. The bottom line for us is that we will not try to return books that cost us less than $100 and even then we are loath to do so, especially when it is obviously our fault. Expensive duplicates, of course, are hard to swallow, so we usually give it a try. On the other hand, we are quite aggressive about not paying (and not returning) unsolicited materials, for essentially the same reason--too much staff time for too little benefit. (11) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: February 6, 1992 From: Christian Subject: ACQNET to suspend operations With this issue we suspend operations until next Monday night. I'll be on my way to North Carolina early tomorrow morning. This has been quite a week. ******* END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 2, No. 18 ****** END OF FILE *******