ACQNET v2n029 (February 27, 1992) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/serials/stacks/acqnet/acq-v2n029 ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 2, No. 29, February 27, 1992 ========================================= (1) FROM: Christian SUBJECT: Who's new on ACQNET today (13 lines) (2) FROM: Beth Jacoby SUBJECT: Brittle book replacement, microform purchasing (29 lines) (3) FROM: Ned Kraft SUBJECT: Firm order claiming (49 lines) (4) FROM: Alison Hunter SUBJECT: Books with software included (16 lines) (5) FROM: Carol Hawks SUBJECT: Dana Alessi (7 lines) (6) FROM: Frances Lynch SUBJECT: Vanderbilt Television News Archive (21 lines) (7) FROM: Mary Wesche SUBJECT: Private offices [I know! I know! Just read it! C.] (29 lines) (1) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: February 27, 1992 From: Christian Subject: Who's new on ACQNET today Carol Vaughan Head of Tech. Svces/Coordinator of Acquisitions University of Missouri - Columbia Library E-mail: ELSCAROL@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU Brian McLaughlin Acquisitions Supervisor Syracuse University Library E-mail: LIBBMC@SUVM.BITNET (2) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 Feb 92 15:13 EST From: Beth Jacoby Subject: Brittle book replacement As part of our overall preservation program, we are embarking on a brittle book program which entails trying to purchase replacements for brittle books deemed important enough to replace. The options which bibliographers are given are to replace the book with the same or a different edition in print format (if commercially available); to replace the book with microform of the same or a different edition; or to have the book photocopied. (This procedure was developed by our preservation officer, so I take no credit or blame for it.) I am new to using tools which would help me determine if a microform version of the brittle book exists, and if so, how I go about purchasing a copy of the microform for our collection. Thus far, I've used OCLC, the _National Register of Microfilm Masters_, and _Guide to Microforms in Print_ to find microform replacements for the books, but I'm unsure as to the meaning of the citations I find in these tools. For example, if OCLC indicates that the Library of Congress holds the master microform for a title I want, does that mean that I can send a purchase order to LC and get a copy of it? OR, if I find a citation in the NRMM that Microfilming Corp. of America has (or had) the master, but the same title is not listed in _Guide to Microforms in Print_, does that mean that the microforms are no longer available commercially (or perhaps the Corp. went out of business)? I'd appreciate hearing from any libraries who are replacing brittle books with microform, or anyone else who can give me a handle on this whole microform purchasing thing. (3) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 Feb 92 15:50:53 EST From: Ned Kraft Subject: CLAIMING FIRM ORDERS The Smithsonian Institution Libraries use GEAC and buy through a central acquisitions office. To put us in perspective, we are a moderate-sized research library with varied interests, buying approx. 8,000 monographs per year. We allow our system to claim automatically once a week. But our delivery cycles and claiming cycles are customized for each vendor, allowing us to give more time to European vendors and still more to third world vendors. Although it varies widely from week to week and from season to season, we seem to print on the average fifty claims. I do insist on reviewing the claims myself because, as Christian suggested in his recent note on the subject, spotting potential problems requires an experienced eye. I also find that as more of my mundane work has been delegated to technicians, reviewing claims keeps me in touch with vendor performance and possible ordering errors. When we receive status reports from vendors we update our orders with claims in mind -- pushing delivery dates ahead, writing special notes in a field that will print on the claim, etc. -- to avoid printing unnecessary claims. For the most part, I can review the claims simply by scanning the information printed on them, watching for certain "red flags". These red flags might include prepayment notes, very old order dates, vendors we've had trouble with in the past, etc. For those orders I will stop and take a closer look. I usually only find three or four of these per week. It seldom takes more than an hour or two each week to review the new batch of claims. If we receive no response to our order and two subsequent claims, the order will appear on a Claim Exception report. We run this report twice a year. As I recall, the report usually has no more than about forty orders listed, taking maybe three days of my time to check each title, make phone calls, write letters, and cancel those orders that seem hopeless. Christian voiced a legitimate concern over bombarding vendors with computer generated claims. I have asked several of our vendors whether our delivery date cycles and claim cycles seem fair and all have agreed to very reasonable durations. We generally use, for delivery, 90 days for domestic, 120 days for European, and longer periods for the third world, adjusting these numbers for the particular quirks of each vendor. And, as I said, if they give us a status report before the due date, we push the date ahead accordingly. We don't want to increase the paper burden, and subsequently the overhead costs, of our vendors. But we must keep in mind that our time is also money. For an acquisitions librarian to become hopelessly backlogged with claims because of a fear of sending out a few illegitimate claims, seems unreasonable to me. If we keep up with our order updates and adjust our claiming dates accordingly, then claiming itself should be manageable. For their part, vendors have a responsibility to send status reports on a regular basis. If they don't, they should expect claims. (4) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 11:21:19 +1100 From: Alison M. Hunter Subject: Software in the back of books Increasing numbers of monographs are being published now with an accompanying disk (floppy or CD-ROM) in a sleeve or pocket in the back of the book. The disk generally contains data, or source code, or examples/exercises etc. Does anyone have policies or procedures covering collection policy, backup, security, etc., of these? I am particularly interested in whether these "packages" are purchased regardless of whether the library holds the hardware to access it, and whether the acquisitions department is involved in backups. Does anyone know of a jacket to protect disks from de-magnetizing, or any other protective mechanism? (5) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 Feb 92 21:44 EST From: Carol P. Hawks Subject: Dana Alessi An additional piece of information regarding Baker & Taylor is that Dana Alessi has been named Director, National Academic Sales effective last Wednesday, Feb. 19. (6) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1992 08:04 CST From: Frances Lynch Subject: Vanderbilt Television News Archive Recently on ACQNET there have been questions and answers regarding transcripts and tapes of news programs. These mentioned Jacklyn Freeman of Vanderbilt University, but they did not point out that the Vanderbilt Television News Archive maintains a permanent and continuing collection of news programs from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and PBS (although unfortunately not McNeil-Lehrer) dating back to August 5, 1968. Tapes are available on loan for a fee to partially defray operating costs. We also publish a monthly guide to this collection, _The Television News Index and Abstracts_. While we do not provide transcripts, this guide allows a user to select items intelligently, making it possible to get all or any portion of the Jeffrey Dahmer murder trial items for instance. This means a researcher can compare Dahmer coverage with that of John Wayne Gacy or Charles Manson. Anyone interested in more information can call or write us at: Vanderbilt Television News Archive, 110 21st Ave. South, Nashville, TN 37203 Phone: (615) 322-2927 FAX: (615) 343-8250 Internet: lynchjr@vanderbilt.edu (7) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 Feb 92 08:57:56 EST From: Mary Wesche Subject: Private offices I have read ACQNET with tremendous interest and gained much insight for over a year now. There have been many subjects that I would have LOVED to comment on, however, I feel extremely intimidated by you all. As a supervisor in the Acquisitions Department at Cornell University who has never had an office, I feel it would be a disaster to have the option of having or not having private offices for supervisory personnel and choosing not to. I agree with all the reasons that everyone else has mentioned, plus I have one more. Many times our department head needs to consult with one supervisor or another in his office and in order to get our attention he does what we all refer to as "bellowing" our name from his office [Bellow? Moi? C.]. It would be much less disturbing if we had private offices with an intercom system or telephone of our own so he could just call and one person would respond. Although other reasons given for offices were more critical, in my opinion, this one is also important. ******* END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 2, No. 29 ****** END OF FILE *******