----------1
Subject: RE: Re: Quit Checking in Journal Issues? (7 messages)
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 09:40:30 -0500
From: "Hijleh, Renee" <hijlehrd@uwec.edu>
Not checking in journals?.........
All I can say is that the publishers must love you (they would be able to mess up
your sub with virtual impunity since you would not know what you are receiving, or
if you are receiving a title at all!) and if you were ever audited, they would
probably be shocked at such management since you would not be able to prove that you
were getting what you paid for!! (I mean, maybe the item would be in the stacks, but
then again, maybe it wouldn't! You would have no way of knowing unless you actually
did a search. And if it was missing, you wouldn't know if it was from non-receipt,
or if it was lost, stolen, or just misplaced within the library itself.)
I can't imagine not checking in journals! It's like saying I'll pay for this title,
but who cares if we receive it or not, or if it's late, etc.
And by the way, if you are not checking things in, how do you know what to claim, or
which missing issue would be a legimitate claim?
This whole concept is beyond belief to me!
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Anderson [mailto:rickand@UNR.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 4:39 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: Quit Checking in Journal Issues? (7 messages)
> Rick, would you be willing to elaborate for the group?
Okay. I can't really go into all the details here, of course, but I'll happily talk
with anyone who wants to call or e-mail me.
First of all, I should refer you to a brief (and very badly edited, grrrr) piece I
wrote on this topic in the May issue of Library Journal ("A sacred cow bites the
dust," Library Journal v. 127 no. 8 [May 1 2002] p. 56). My boss and I are also
preparing a more thorough treatment for a future issue of LCATS.
Here's the long and the short of it: At the University of Nevada our print journals
represent the least-used 20% of our journal collection. Yet with traditional
check-in, we were devoting the majority of our student time and a significant chunk
of our classified staff time to the management of that least-used 20%. If check-in
is necessary, why were we only doing it for the least-used segment of the
collection? And if it's not necessary, why were we doing it at all? (Our Dean of
Libraries actually posed this question to me when I first arrived at Nevada, and I
laughed it off. It took me seven months to suddenly realize that he was right.)
We decided it's not necessary. It's now been a year since we stopped check-in, and
the results have been great. We claim only selectively, we box instead of binding,
and we do a much better job of maintaining our online offerings, which are heavily
used. I think the liberating realization for me was that there was no way my small
serials staff was going to be able to closely manage 15,000 journal subscriptions.
That meant we were going to have to prioritize. In the past, our default setting
had been to manage print carefully and to manage online sloppily; that's an
increasingly goofy way to offer information to patrons. Doing away with check-in
basically meant switching those priorities, and so far it looks like our patrons
have benefited significantly from that decision.
-------------
Rick Anderson
Director of Resource Acquisition
The University Libraries
University of Nevada, Reno "I'm not against the modern
1664 No. Virginia St. world. I just don't think
Reno, NV 89557 everything's for sale."
PH (775) 784-6500 x273 -- Elvis Costello
FX (775) 784-1328
rickand@unr.edu
----------2
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 08:43:29 -0600
From: Dan Lester <dan@riverofdata.com>
Subject: Re[2]: Quit Checking in Journal Issues? (7 messages)
Hi again Rick,
Could you elaborate a bit, perhaps to the list, on how you computed
that the print journals were only 20 percent of the use? I'm not
doubting you, just interested in methodology. I'd guess that
ejournals here, including those from aggregators, are over 50 percent,
but not as high as 80 percent. But that's a wild guess based on
observation alone.
cheers
dan
RA> Here's the long and the short of it: At the University of Nevada our print
RA> journals represent the least-used 20% of our journal collection. Yet with
RA> traditional check-in, we were devoting the majority of our student time and
RA> a significant chunk of our classified staff time to the management of that
RA> least-used 20%.
--
Dan Lester, Data Wrangler dan@RiverOfData.com 208-283-7711
3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho 83716-7115 USA
www.riverofdata.com www.gailndan.com Stop Global Whining!
----------3
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 09:50:09 -0500
From: Judy Casada <jcasada@uark.edu>
Subject: Re: Quit checking in journal issues?
Here is one example of what can happen. Our library has subscriptions to
102 titles from Kluwer. Of those, 16 were placed with one vendor during
the 2001 subscription year. Of those 16, 12 of the subscriptions were in
trouble. Several of the subscriptions, in their entirety, had been sent to
an incorrect address. We still have the entire year missing on a couple of
the titles. If we had not checked in or claimed printed issues, we would
have (on these 12 titles alone) wasted $5,468 for the State of Arkansas.
At 01:04 PM 8/13/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>Have any of you considered stopping journal check-in? If so, what issues
>did you face? I'm wondering if the staff time saved would be worth any
>negative consequences? Know of any studies that convince you of the value
>of checking in issues?
>
>I've searched the SERIALST archive and don't see this issue addressed; any
>comments, advice, warnings, etc. will be appreciated.
>Laura Zick, Information Scientist
>Library & Information Services
>Eli Lilly and Company
>Lilly Corporate Center, DC 0737, Indianapolis, Indiana 46285 USA
>zick_laura@lilly.com; voice: 317.277.1236; fax: 317.276.4418
Judy Casada
Serials Department
University of Arkansas Libraries
365 N Ozark Ave
Fayetteville AR 72701-4002
Phone/Voice: 479-575-5416
Fax: 479-575-4817
----------4
From: "Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>
Subject: RE: Re[2]: Quit Checking in Journal Issues? (7 messages)
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 08:03:25 -0700
> Could you elaborate a bit, perhaps to the list, on how you computed
> that the print journals were only 20 percent of the use?
Actually, what I said was that the print journals constitute the least-used
20% of our journal collection, not that they account for only 20% of the
use. But in fact, I would guess that they account for much less than 20% of
the use our journal collection gets.
I base that guess on three facts:
1. Our online journals are used very, very heavily
2. Our print journals are used very, very lightly (a recent usage study of
our print collection indicated that the average journal issue is reshelved
.5 times during its stay in the Current Periodicals area -- that's _.5_, not
5)
3. 80% of the journals we offer are online, while 20% are print (though
there is some overlap between the two categories).
So our situation can be summarized this way: since 80% of the collection is
online and 20% is print, both formats would have to get equal levels of use
in order for print to account for 20% of that use. Of course, "use" may be
defined differently in the print and electronic realms -- if you do an
online search that turns up a list of 300 articles, have you "used" each
article? -- so interpretations may vary. What is clear to me is that the
print journal collection in my library is increasingly marginalized, and
that a policy of focusing all of our attention on print while essentially
leaving online to fend for itself is an absurd one.
-------------
Rick Anderson
Director of Resource Acquisition
The University Libraries
University of Nevada, Reno "I'm not against the modern
1664 No. Virginia St. world. I just don't think
Reno, NV 89557 everything's for sale."
PH (775) 784-6500 x273 -- Elvis Costello
FX (775) 784-1328
rickand@unr.edu
----------5
From: "Skwor, Jeanette" <skworj@uwgb.edu>
Subject: Library Journal "Sacred Cow" article
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 10:22:37 -0500
***FYI: This piece is available online at:
http://libraryjournal.reviewsnews.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleI
D=CA213839
***Thanks, Rick!
Jeanette L. Skwor
Serials Dept.
Cofrin Library
University of Wisconsin - Green Bay
Green Bay, WI 54311-7001
(920) 465-2670
