ACQNET v2n084 (September 2, 1992) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/serials/stacks/acqnet/acq-v2n084 ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 2, No. 84, September 2, 1992 ========================================= (1) FROM: Marsha Hamilton SUBJECT: Middle East vendors (16 lines) (2) FROM: Peter Stevens SUBJECT: Middle East vendors (10 lines) (3) FROM: Mark Braden SUBJECT: ALCTS, professional organizations (30 lines) (4) FROM: Lawrence Caylor SUBJECT: Co-publishing (17 lines) (5) FROM: Brenda Hurst SUBJECT: Co-publishing (24 lines) (6) FROM: Norman Desmarais SUBJECT: Co-publishing (11 lines) (7) FROM: Peter Stevens SUBJECT: Co-publishing (39 lines) (1) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 17:21 EDT From: Marsha Hamilton (Ohio State University) Subject: Middle East vendors In response to questions about Middle Eastern vendors: You will have little success asking one dealer to handle any Arabic language publication regardless of country of origin in the Middle East. Print runs are very small, postal and export regulations vary a great deal from country to country, and the biblio- graphic control of what is published appears long after publications are no longer available. Vendors who do well under the circumstances given are Dar Mahjar, P.O. Box 56, Cambridge, MA. 02238, owned by librarian Fawzi Abdulrazzak, and Leila Bookshop, 17 Gawad Hofny Street, P.O.Box 31-El Daher, Postal Code 11271, Cairo, Egypt. I was a Middle East specialist for 8 years. If you want more information on ordering, contact me directly. (2) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 08:31:58 -0700 (PDT) From: Peter Stevens (University of Washington) Subject: Middle East book jobbers We use the US vendor Dar Mahjar Books for books from the Middle East and find that they give good service. Their address is P.O. Box 56, Cambridge, MA 02238. For Egyptian publications, Leila Bookshop is quite reliable; their address is P.O. Box 31, El Daher, 11271-Cairo, Egypt. For the rest of the Arab world, a good Middle East source is Sulaiman's Bookshop, whose address is P.O. Box 11-8258, Beirut, Lebanon. (3) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 12:40:27 PDT From: Mark Braden (Occidental College) Subject: Comments about ALCTS, following Ann O'Neill's comments Recently Ann O'Neill offered some comments about ALCTS, membership, and the division's reorganization. I'm writing to add a comment about membership, which has important issues alone. Memberships are paid from my personal resources. For the last six years or so I've been an ALA member, and have found that my frustration has risen as the membership dues for the various divisions has increased. During the past few years I joined ACRL and ALCTS. This year I decided to drop all ALA membership, simply because the cost has become prohibitive. Belonging to ALA (the general membership) may have its benefits, but my limited resources/time/interests require that I focus on the divisions. YET, one must pay the general fee, THEN the divisional fee. I should note that I also consider membership in the state Association (Cal. Lib. Assn.) prohibitive. For my limited membership budget, I can belong to a group of regional (e.g., CARL--Calif. Academic & Research Libraries) or smaller national/international organizations (e.g., NASIG) which offer similar professional opportunities, and are also addressing important national/international issues. I am not questioning the general value of belonging to the ALA divisions; it's simply too expensive for me. When it becomes affordable to me again (which basically means, when I can join the divisions alone), I'll then consider whether the organization gives me the chance to get involved! (4) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 08:53:29 -0400 From: Lawrence Caylor (U. of Mass. - Lowell) Subject: Co-publishing As both acquisitions and collection development librarian, I am aware that identical titles are published on both sides of the Atlantic, and often grateful, especially when the rate of exchange is advantageous or when the U.S. title is out-of-print. As a matter of course, however, the U.S. title is preferred, if only because it may be acquired more quickly. A major vendor in the U.S. at one time had an agreement with its foreign counterpart to supply the foreign product, even when the same title was available and at a more economical price in the U.S. The shipping costs alone proved alarming, beyond a certain point, and so we have black-listed that vendor. University presses have produced publications of consistent quality at reasonable prices; for these reasons I support them by purchasing their titles. (5) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 11:28 EST From: Brenda Hurst (Can. Inst. for Sci. & Tech. Info.) Subject: Co-publication discussion on ACQNET I was fascinated by the discussion in ACQNET about copublication of books. This problem has plagued Canadian librarians for many years. Copublishers often forget that North America has countries other than the United States. If, in Canada, we try to purchase the United States copublication from the American publisher often we are told there are no Canadian rights. Presently, we buy from form selection plans from all over the world. Frankly, we buy from the dealer who first makes us aware of the publication. I would also like to comment that subtle differences in titles of these copublications and different ISBN's make the whole situation very confusing. For us, whether the purchase is more economical in the United States or Europe is a whim of the Canadian dollar exchange rate of the day. I think publishers have an odd notion of the availability of time if they believe collection librarians can check every title to see if it is published elsewhere. There are publishers who copublish in several countries. As far as I am concerned any publisher who threatens lawsuits because I haven't bought from a designated location or dealer, risks losing his business with me altogether. (6) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 01 Sep 92 13:36:36 EDT From: Norman Desmarais (Providence College) Subject: Co-publishing I used to routinely order US editions of books published jointly by US and UK publishers, assuming that the contents were identical. I don't know about other disciplines; but it seems that in the area of fiction, the US and UK editions sometimes have different endings or plot twists that make one edition preferable to another. Consequently, our faculty liaison with the English department now specifies whether the US edition is preferable or whether they specifically want the UK edition. (7) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 14:47:11 -0700 (PDT) From: Peter Stevens (University of Washington) Subject: Co-publishing I think the AAUP are making too big a deal about too minor a matter. Yes, I'm aware that I may sometimes be purchasing a book from the UK or Canada that is also to be published in the US--but it's unimportant to me in the process of ordering tens of thousands of titles. Much of what I acquire from the US, Canada and the UK come on my approval programs where my parameters are based on the country of origin of the work. My interest is in obtaining books as promptly after publication as possible--and as inexpensively as possible. Sometimes these goals conflict, as when the US edition is a good deal cheaper than the British but the British edition is published sooner. When placing firm orders, it is not always straightforward identifying the US edition. It's not uncommon for the US edition to be in BIP but not actually available for purchase. We have no policy about acquiring US editions in favor of the British or Canadian. Our vendors in the UK and Canada happily supply what we order without bouncing orders back to us. If they did bounce orders back to us, I'd find other vendors. In the event that we are aware of a US edition, we will usually order it, even if in some cases, it means that cataloging the book may be more costly (if we already have the UK edition, for instance). It's nearly always cheaper and faster to obtain the US edition except when newly published (when the UK edition can sometimes be obtained sooner). Co-publishing complicates ordering of US and UK titles. There seem to be a lot of ad-hoc arrangements for particular titles rather than for publishers' entire outputs. We not infrequently have our orders for the US editions of books canceled as unavailable in the US--but only after a nice delay that can make us look like we are doing a poor job of acquiring books (since other libraries will already have copies). These situations make some of us want to go to the originating publisher so that we can acquire the title, quickly, with one order instead of two. I hope that some of our vendor members on ACQNET can comment on their co-pub- lishing complications for firm orders and for approvals. ******* END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 2, No. 84 ****** END OF FILE *******