ACQNET v2n040 (March 23, 1992) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/serials/stacks/acqnet/acq-v2n040 ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 2, No. 40, March 23, 1992 ====================================== (1) FROM: Christian SUBJECT: Who's new on ACQNET today (8 lines) (2) FROM: Jian Liu SUBJECT: Library education, selection aids (58 lines) (3) FROM: Peter Stevens SUBJECT: Library education, acquisitions profession (32 lines) (4) FROM: Joe Barker SUBJECT: Academic Book Center survey (12 lines) (5) FROM: David Marshall SUBJECT: Electronic ordering (13 lines) (6) FROM: Rosann Bazirjian SUBJECT: Purchase requests (19 lines) (7) FROM: Eileen Hardy SUBJECT: Network distribution rights for video materials (15 lines) (1) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: March 23, 1992 From: Christian Subject: Who's new on ACQNET today James A. Baldwin Head of Acquisitions University Library at IUPUI E-mail: ITHO100@INDYCMS (2) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Mar 92 02:08 EST From: Jian Liu Subject: Why have I remained mute until now? Plus a request and a question I haven't said anything so far because I didn't have anything to contribute to this group, though I have benefitted a great deal by merely reading all the weekly postings from the moderator. For this alone, I say thank you, Chris- tian, for allowing me to join the group. The gap between the profession and the education has always been a big problem. One of the purposes of education is to prepare students for the profession. The question is how. The education has to be general, while the profession is so specific. You practitioners of the profession may object by say, look, young man, ours is also very general. We need to have a very broad knowledge base to be competent in our acquisition; we need to deal with people, compa- nies, and vendors of all kinds all over the world. Granted that, it is still too specific for me as a library school student. You are doing your acquisi- tion in a specific library, for a specific clientele, abiding by a specific collection development policy. But in a three-hour collection development course, the content of the profession is introduced by types. Specifics are used as examples to illustrate the types. Acquisitions are done here in university, college, public libraries and in school media centers. Publishers are differentiated as trade, small, university, private, and vanity club. Selection aids are types. Acquisition method or process? We haven't come to it yet (I am taking the course now). To top all this, acquisition is only one the four courses I am taking. If we compare the content of the course with what you've been discussing on this list, you'll see the gap is, to a great extent, inevitable. What can I do but remain silent, awed by your erudition, feeling myself an outsider, a newcomer in this whirl of continuous conversation? An outsider, besides, in a deeper sense for myself, being an international student. This, however, was expected, for my original motive of joining this group was just to get a taste, a glimpse of reality. Please don't conclude that I've given you a whole picture of the course I am taking. My instructor, Dr. Serebnick, (some of you may still remember her if you graduated from SLIS at IU. She is one of the best teachers I've ever had, knowledgeable, exciting and very, very nice.) has consciously been trying to bridge the gap. As an example (and here comes my request as well), for our final project, we need to select a specific library, act as the acquisitions librarian for that library, and go through the complete process of acquiring about 10 items in various formats in a special area for that library. Part of the requirement of the project is to find a copy of the collection development policy of the selected library. But most of the policies we have here at our SLIS library are out of date. (I have selected the University of Texas at Austin, and I am using its 1976 edition of the policy.) If all of you send us a copy of the most current, up-to-dated collection development policy of your library, you will be doing a great service to your successors. I promise you that I'll see to it that all the copies will receive proper and respected treatment, and put on reserve in our SLIS library for future class use. I realize I've already written too much. My question is: what other kinds of selection aids are you using besides all the printed ones? I am familiar with _Books in Print Plus_ on CD-ROM. Are there others? What do you think of the numerous Internet OPACs as selection aids? Thank you very much. I'll shut up. (3) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1992 09:09:36 -0800 (PST) From: Peter Stevens Subject: Library School students I had the pleasure of giving short tours of Acquisitions to students from the library school here at the University a few weeks ago. I gave four or five tours to groups of five to fifteen students who were enrolled in a cataloging course. It was interesting to learn that acquisitions is a brief part of a serials course but is not part of the cataloging or collection development courses (based at least on course descriptions). The students perked up when I pointed out that about half of all professionals on the staff of this library system have selection as part of their responsibilities--and that these selectors deal a lot with acquisitions. Only a couple of students knew what an approval program was or how the books are acquired that keep cataloguers so busy. I tried as well to make a pitch for acquisitions as a great area to work in. As someone who was a cataloguer for two years, I pointed out how different acquisitions is from cataloging: how action-oriented acquisitions librarians are, without all of the rules of cataloging; how independently we can operate, since our records are not on view nationally via OCLC; how we deal with dozens of selectors and library units and directly with library users; how we get to enjoy the company and expense accounts of vendor reps; how acquisitions tends to have more terminals and automation hardware than other units; how our expertise is focused in just a few librarians per library and seems hopelessly complex to people outside acquisitions. Because technical services are more often directed by former cataloguers than acquisitions librarians, acquisitions is often left to operate without a lot of interference. Acquisitions is often able to play Santa Claus with selectors and users, providing special services and expediting orders--which brings in satisfying personal rewards. Why would anyone want to work anywhere else? (4) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Mar 92 07:23:51 PST From: Joe Barker Subject: Academic Book Center survey Kudos to Peter for his successful work getting low discounts. I envy his strategical approach and his knowledge about publisher and vendor practices in the discount arena. But it seems to me that the logical extension of his openness about his practices, and therefore those of vendors, is that he should send a copy of the survey he filled out not only to ABC but also to all of the other vendors he deals with. How about it, Peter? (5) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1992 14:06 EST From: David Marshall Subject: Electronic ordering query I am about to begin a trial use of electronic ordering and would like to gain from others' experience. Some of the questions I have center on the impact on the work flow: What, if any, reorganization has e-ordering caused? Do all the ordering staff access the vendor's file, or has this caused specialization? If the order is created with the vendor by attaching one's library's code in their files, does one create a record simultaneously in the local data base? If not, do all searching staff need access to the vendor's file? How many terminals/work stations are involved in this process? Are these dedicated terminals, etc.? (6) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1992 08:10:30 EST From: Rosann Bazirjian Subject: Purchase requests I've been following the conversation on ordering staff productivity very anxiously, since it was I who first asked the question. I realize that there are many variables that go into the final statistics. One that just occurred to me is that we also need to consider the way our ordering units are receiving the purchase requests from selectors. Are orders submitted to us in electronic format, on a standardized form, or as in our case, on anything the bibliogra- pher wants to send? We receive orders for items checked from catalogs, we receive form selections, but we also accept authors and titles scratched out on napkins, pieces of 3x5 paper, or any other piece of paper the selector happened to have handy. All of the deciphering involved in these requests is time taken from productivity. My question: are libraries requiring that orders be submitted to their acquisi- tions departments in standardized formats? Is it possible to enforce that? Is it something that should be requested? (7) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1992 10:26 EST From: Eileen Hardy Subject: Network distribution rights for video materials We are now in the process of installing a video distribution network on our campus which will deliver programming to instructional areas (not dorms). We anticipate that the very small collection of films and videotapes that we now own will grow substantially. In preparation for this, we are interested in what rights we have to distribute the video materials that we own and/or will purchase. Has any of you who purchase video materials had any experience in obtaining network distribution rights for video materials (especially laserdisks) at the point of purchase? Or re-negotiated rights for videos that you already own? ANY information you can provide about how you do this would be helpful. ******* END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 2, No. 40 ****** END OF FILE *******