ACQNET v2n076 (August 13, 1992) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/serials/stacks/acqnet/acq-v2n076 ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 2, No. 76, August 13, 1992 ======================================= (1) FROM: Christian Boissonnas SUBJECT: Who's new on ACQNET today (18 lines) (2) FROM: Alison Hunter SUBJECT: Vendor selection (17 lines) (3) FROM: Judith Wann SUBJECT: Telemarketing (23 lines) (4) FROM: Ann O'Neill SUBJECT: ALCTS reorganization (31 lines) (5) FROM: Jim Deffenbaugh SUBJECT: Hardbacks vs. paperbacks (64 lines) (1) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: August 13, 1992 From: Christian Subject: Who's new on ACQNET today Judy Chandler Irvin Philip Gregory Kent Head, Serials Department Acquisitions Librarian Louisiana Tech University CSIRO Library Network E-mail: IF04316@LATECH.BITNET E-mail: PK@ISBSERVER.ISB.CSIRO.AU Patricia Ohl Rice Judith Marion Evans Documentation & Training Libr. Acquisitions Librarian Pennsylvania State Univ. Library Australian National University Library E-mail: POR@PSULIAS.BITNET E-mail: JUDYE@INFO.ANU.EDU.AU Wayne J. Gladish Head, Acquisitions California State University - Los Angeles Library E-mail: WGLADIS@CALSTATELA.EDU (2) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Aug 92 10:03:08 +1000 From: Alison M. Hunter (James Cook University) Subject: Vendors for large & not-so-large As a follow-up from Anna Belle Leiserson's comment, I agree whole-heartedly with her conclusion that "there are no absolutes in acquisitions"...! Evaluating vendors depends not only on the size of your library, but also critically, on the mix of titles that the vendor supplies and whether you are in the same country as the vendor! An Australian academic library with a broad mix of commercial/non-commercial titles ranging over a large number of subject areas will clearly make different demands on serials suppliers than, say, an overseas library requiring mostly commercial titles. If all suppliers were equally good at servicing all serial titles, then we'd probably only have one supplier! As it is, diversity is very highly desirable, and ensures that each library will use the most appropriate suppliers for its particular needs. I agree with the comments about Blackwell's UK too. (3) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Aug 92 17:18:52 U From: Judith Wann Subject: A telemarketer I've been in acquisitions off and on for 15 years, and thought that telemarketers had lost their ability to surprise me (though not to annoy me), but today proved me wrong. A salesman called offering sample issues of a marketing magazine. After satisfying myself that there were no strings attached, and making sure he understood that we are adding few new serial titles now and aren't likely to subscribe to his, I agreed to take a sample. After he had verified my name and address, he said, "You don't have to answer this if it's a problem, but what is your birth date?". I asked him why he wanted to know, and he said so he could "...be sure I've talked to someone there." I told him that I'm not sensitive about my age, but that I couldn't see any reason for me to tell him my birth- date, and that if he really wanted to make sure I work here, he could look in _American Library Directory_. He was satisfied with that. However, the more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed. Has this happened to anyone else? Can anyone think of a legitimate reason for a telemarketer to ask such a question? Maybe I should have given him my shoe size instead. (4) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Aug 92 08:11:17 EDT From: Ann O'Neill (UNC) I've been thinking about the proposed ALCTS reorganization for the last couple of weeks, and think its time to speak up. First, even though my interests are in Technical Services, I am NOT a member of ALCTS. For 2 reasons - 1) One of life small protests over how the separation of _AN2_ and Marcia Tuttle's _Newsletter_ were handled. 2) To all outward appearances this is a catalogers' division. I see very little work being done to support acquisitions, serials, collection development or preservation. There is no motivation for me to join. So with that in mind, I think it would be best for the organization to decide how to reach out to people like myself, and show us what ALCTS can do for us. The energy being spent on a flat organizational structure could be better spent in PR. Also, the organizational structure that is being proposed does not encourage participation. It gives the appearance of having to know the "in" people to get committee appointments, ideas approved, etc. It is hard enough for "new" people to get up the courage to talk to a committee member about helping - talking to a member of the executive board would only make that fear worse. I'm not so sure that the idea of another electronic bulletin board, list server, etc. is very wise either. Only a small number of librarians are actually using e-mail, and then generally only at the larger libraries, usually academic. Such a move would only further isolate librarians at smaller libraries. I hope my opinions will help the ALCTS executive board make the organization more responsive to all librarians interested in technical services. (5) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 13:45:59 EDT From: Jim Deffenbaugh (Coll. of William and Mary) Subject: Hardbacks vs. paperbacks In reference to Joyce Ogburn's original question on the appearance of more paperbacks to be bound and Hanna King's observations on the binding of paperbacks, I have some comments of my own. Joyce's original question of why more paperbacks at this time and her description of Yale's paperback binding policy presupposes a preservation/ collection development principle accepted without question for decades. The principle could be summed up as follows: the healthy physical condition of your collection into the future governs that one should always order a book title in hardback format unless the title appears only in paperback; if only paperbacks are available, then the same preservation concerns govern that they be bound before going to the stacks. The assumption is that hardbacks and bound paperbacks, in that order, last longer. This principle is now beginning to be challenged. The differential in cost between hardback and paper with some publishers, especially university presses, now often approaches a paper/hardback cost ratio of 3 to 1, nearly 5 to 1 in some cases (in other words, the hardback costs 3 to 5 times more than the paperback of the same title). In discussing this trend with us, our SOLINET (Atlanta) preservation consultant Lisa Fox noted that the average physical condition of new hard bound books is so low that a paperback rebound according to specifications will be preserved much longer than a hardback original. When a hardback costs $69.95 and the paper costs $19.95, even a $10 binding cost (and a lot of us get it for less) puts you way ahead fiscally while reaping greater preservation benefits. So the first half of the preservation/collection development principle stated above receives a challenge: Should a hardbound format always be the first choice when ordering a book title? Recent research seems to move the discussion even further along and questions whether it is always better to rebind a paperback book before it goes to the shelf. In an eye-opening article in vol. 7, no. 4 of _Technical Services Quarterly_ ("The Life Expectancy of Paperback Books in Academic Libraries: a Follow-up Study," pp. 1-10), Roger Presley and Christina Landram of Georgia State University Library checked the physical condition of paper- back books upon arrival in the library and four years later (They'd been placed in the stacks without being bound). Most of the paperbacks evaluated in this way were found to be in good physical condition. They concluded, and indeed reaffirmed, that the blanket policy of binding paper- back books was not valid for their library and was a waste of library resources. I have heard this echoed recurrently among collection development, acquisi- tions, and preservation people at recent ALA meetings. More and more often, academic libraries seem to be discarding the policy of automatically binding paperbacks. In most of these cases, if the paperbacks are bound, they're bound after a few years, when and if there is clear evidence that a particular paperback needs rebinding. What Hannah King said in ACQNET about these things fits in well with other research and with an awful lot of individual libraries' policy changes in recent years regarding this matter.. Apparently Hannah, like others, is just not finding that paperbacks always hold up so poorly as we all believed for many years. It was especially interesting to read that she finds that paperback books generally hold good physical condition better than hardbacks. I guess the response I offer to Joyce Ogburn would forego an explanation or confirmation of an increasing number of paperback books to be bound and ask her instead to reconsider, as many of us have, the automatic binding of paperbacks. ******* END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 2, No. 76 ****** END OF FILE *******