ACQNET v3n038 (April 1, 1993) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/serials/stacks/acqnet/acq-v3n038 ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 3, No. 38, April 1, 1993 ===================================== (1) FROM: Joe Barker SUBJECT: Staff productivity, nature of library work (64 lines) (2) FROM: Ellen Duranceau SUBJECT: Documents processing, automated acq. systems (35 lines) (3) FROM: Sue Stoebner SUBJECT: Kessinger Publishing, Kila, MT (29 lines) (4) FROM: Jeanne-Elizabeth Combs SUBJECT: Meeting: PALINET Acquisitions Users Group (17 lines) (5) FROM: Jeanne-Elizabeth Combs SUBJECT: Meeting: Technology & the Business of Publishing (24 lines) (1)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Apr 93 08:28:36 PST From: Joe Barker (UC - Berkeley) Subject: Staff Productivity: More thoughts... Thank you, Barbara Boissonnas, for spying the key issue in my piece about staff morale in grim times. Productivity is up and staffing are down, and NO ONE WANTS TO GO BACKWARD IN TIME. Yes, the nature of the workplace HAS changed. Not by the parties or the wonderfully crazed mind set that bubbles up among the talented and zany staff. These help by reminding us that we are powerfully creative and energetic, no matter what cuts the state deals out. And we enjoy each other. The workplace tries to be welcoming to our entire beings, not just our productive selves. The major change is in the WAY PEOPLE WORK. Here at Berkeley, and I believe this is true in many places, productivity is up despite staff cuts because we work better, smarter, with less drag. For example, we use PC office automation very creatively and effectively to eliminate even more filing, even more filling out of forms, even more re-keying of bibliographic and order data for correspondence within and without the library -- even more than the last round of automation. The result is 30-45% less staff required in units that can do this. It also helps that the staff are given time, tools, and training to create these PC enhancement to their work themselves. The feel like they own the outcome and naturally use it and improve it further. (Yes, Barbara, there are fewer jobs because of automation, but the jobs are much more enjoyable.) Another example is increasing spans of responsibility and authority to investigate and solve questions/problems at the point they originate. This allows staff to grow and adapt to their environment, since they are all service providers. It also virtually eliminates costly referrals, re-describing a problem to the referee, time-consuming apologies for delays, and, most of all, the time to re-analyze and re-discuss problems/questions by the referee(s). People take on the feeling that they are not bureaucrats but agile service-deliverers. Couple this with cross-trained teams, assigned to branches/selectors or vendors/publishers to whom they provide services, and a sense that the resulting staff providing similar work belong to functional "professions" with user groups of peers throughout the Library and valuable specialized skills and you have another incentive to people to feel they own their jobs and want to work to make them a success. In peer user groups people spontaneously exchange trade secrets, generate innovative time-savers, and form professional friendships that make communications go faster. These two combined have, in some units, generated increased productivity of 15-25%. (Fewer jobs again, Barbara, but those old bureaucratic ones never should have existed, in my view.) The party spirit really devolves from the relatively high morale from people feeling they are contributing effectively to their jobs, that putting in prime time every day at the Library is rewarding to the individual most of the time. They feel valued, and know they will get to use their minds and their talents. I welcome reports on ACQNET of other libraries' discoveries of ways to make people work smarter and better. I think we all need all the ingenuity we can muster these days and, again, I thank Barbara Boissonnas for begging the issue. (No, Barbara, no one would want to go back to the fat old days when staff were and felt less valued, but at UCB, after three years with no raises and a 5% pay cut this year, everyone here would like more money for going forward so well). (2)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Apr 93 17:36:14 EST From: Ellen Duranceau (MIT) Subject: Documents processing, automated acquisitions systems The MIT Libraries are in the RFP stage of selecting a new integrated library system. I oversee centralized documents processing (selective depository at the 56% level) and am exploring the possibility of using the serials control/acquisitions module of the new system to check in all of our depository documents, including the monographs. Because we are not yet automated for serials check-in of any kind, I am having difficulty determining the feasibility of this idea, and wondered if ACQNET readers would be willing to share their experience of checking in monographic documents this way, or their thoughts about why they are not doing so. Specifically, I'd like to know: --Which systems have been used successfully to do this, and how were records set up to make it work? Do libraries, for example, link class numbers with their item numbers in the way one might set up a blanket order in the serials control system? (e.g. similar to an IEEE blanket order)? Or is there another way to organize and control the records? --What difficulties, if any, have there been in transferring the acquisition records to the OPAC and then matching these records against full MARC records from GPO tapes? --If you do NOT use your ILS to check in monographs, what scheme have you found preferable? I am weighing the advantages and disadvantages of using a PC-based system for check-in as compared with the ILS, and would appreciate any thoughts on this choice. (3)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1993 17:29:35 -0800 (PST) From: Sue Stoebner (Stanford University) Subject: "Facsimile" reprints Recently we placed an order for a book from Kessinger Publishing in Kila, MT, for a title listed in _Books in Print_. This volume was to be a replacement for the brittle (1897, published by Macmillan) volume we had in hand. A member of our staff phoned Kessinger and was told that the volume was on acid-free paper, and that it was a "facsimile" reprint. The cost was a major factor in determining that we would not preservation photocopy the volume we had in hand. I inspected the volume upon receipt, and noted that the facsimile lacked the original frontispiece illustration and that the original title page and verso had been replaced by a new one indicating a 1992 copyright date and a copyright restriction notice "all rights reserved..." for Kessinger as the publisher. I called to indicate that they had mis-represented the product in describing it as a facsimile, and that in fact the quality of reproduction of both text and illustrations was poor. I did indicate to the publisher that I would be sharing my problem on both acquisitions and conservation bulletin boards. Has anyone else had a similar experience with Kessinger or any other reprint publisher? Are there others that we need to be wary of? Thanks, Karen Mokrzycki, University of California, Santa Cruz (karenm@scilibx.ucsc.edu) (4)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 15:05:21 EST From: Jeanne-Elizabeth Combs (PALINET) Subject: Acquisitions User Group Meeting 4/29 PALINET has rescheduled the Spring meeting of the Acquisitions User Group cancelled by the "blizzard of the century" (sic). The meeting will be held Thursday April 29, 1993 from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm at the College of Physicians in Philadelphia. (Map, directions, and parking instructions available.) The focus of the meeting will be on budget issues and policies. Members of the group should have received a flyer and registration form. There is no charge, either for the meeting or for membership in the group. For further information, contact the group's facilitator, Jeanne-Elizabeth Combs, at PALINET 215-382-7031 or PALINET@SHRSYS.HSLC.ORG (5)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 15:16:23 EST From: Jeanne-Elizabeth Combs (PALINET) Subject: Technology and the Business of Publishing 5/20 ASIS DVC will host a dinner meeting, with guest speaker Karen Hunter, on the topic of "Technology and the Business of Publishing." The presentation will focus on how current and near-future technologies (and the market changes created by technology) affect the business planning of scientific, technical, and medical(STM) publishers and the likely economic and service consequences for librarians and information specialists. Date: Thursday, May 20, 1993 Time: 5:30 Cash Bar, 6:30 Dinner and speaker Place: Williamson's Atop the GSB, Belmont & City Line Avenues, Bala Cynwyd PA 19004 (free parking available) Price: $30.00 To register, contact Susan Agent at 302/831-887 or mail check made out to ASIS DVC, along with name, company, address, phone, and number attending to: Ms. Susan Agent, 106 East Skeet Circle, Bear, DE 19701. For information on ASIS Delaware Valley Chapter, contact Jeanne-Elizabeth Combs, program chair, at 215-382-7031 (PALINET) or PALINET@SHRSYS.HSLC.ORG ****** END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 3, No. 38 ****** END OF FILE ******