Tools/resources for keeping up-to-date in serials work-- Responses to survey Ann Ercelawn 11 Jun 2007 20:17 UTC

I had 8 responses from librarians/library assistants (numbered A-H
below). Some answers have been edited slightly and not every
respondent answered every question. I think the answers are very
interesting.  Sincerest thanks to all who took the time to respond!
Ann

>
> 1) What are the websites that you find most useful?

A. CONSER
Departmental website with links documentation
Google for researching corporate bodies

B. NLM's Locator Plus http://130.14.16.150/locatorplus.html
http://melvyl.cdlib.org/F/?func=file&file_name=find-b&local_base=cdl90

C. Arts and Letters Daily (http://www.aldaily.com/), which links to
interesting articles on a wide range of subjects.

D. Worldcat as a tool to link directly to the catalogs of its
holding libraries (for bibliographic details)

E. Depends on the purpose

F. Some of the links on Tools for Serials Catalogers
Publisher and vendor websites,
ALA, NASIG, ARL

G. I find that I rarely go to a library-related website anymore,
instead relying on RSS feeds.  And if a library-related website
doesn't offer an RSS feed, I am highly unlikely to refer to it much
again.

>
> 2) What listservs do you find indispensable?

A. CONSERLST (private list for CONSER members)
SERIALST

B. SERIALST, medlib-l, sla listserv, InfoPeople listserv with class
announcements

C. SERIALST and in order of importance:
LIBLICENSE
SPARC-OA Forum
NGC4LIB
Voyager-L
Web4Lib
SPARC-IR
DIGLIB
GOVDOC-L

D. SERIALST

E.  SERIALIST, LIB-LICENSE, MEDLIB-L (surprisingly a lot of good
serials info comes from MEDLIB), LITA-L

F. SERIALST, OCLC-CAT & AUTOCAT, Since we are a Federal Depository
and this is part of my responsiblity I also subscribe to DOCTECH-L
and GOVDOC-L.
We also belong to a library consortium that has a listserv to which
I subscribe.

G. I am finding myself really paring down my participation in
listservs.  I'm still subscribed to SERIALST and I also pay
attention
to SFX-DISCUSS-L, LIB-STATS, LIS-E-JOURNALS, and ERIL-L.

H. Serialst -- helpful.
Autocat -- pretty overwhelming, but sometimes helpful
ERIL-L -- not very busy
TLA and the Tennshare list-- so I don't miss a consortial deal
NGC4LIB and web4lib

> 3) What are the most important formal publications (in print or
> online) that you read on a regular basis?

A. I don't read them on a regular basis. When I do I read CCQ,
LRTS, and JIC. Of the three I read LRTS the most.

B. Information Outlook (SLA)
JMLA
Journal of Hospital Librarianship
several medical librarian newsletters

C. I still scan Library Journal and American Libraries, but I feel
like I get less out of them than I used to.  I almost never read
anything in C&RL or LRTS anymore.
Wired is good for tech trends, though you have to filter the
gosh-wow tone.
I get a lot out of the Chronicle of Higher Ed., but it's too big --
if I read it one week, I often don't get to anything else.

D. LRTS

E. Don't really read any on a regular basis.

F. Chronicles of Higher Education
Current Cites
DttP
Internet Resource Newsletter
LRTS
NextSpace, an OCLC newsletter

G. Serials Review, LCATS, D-LIB, Library Journal.  Increasingly,
though,I am not reading formal publications as much, instead, as in
the case of websites and listservs, relying on blogs, wikis, and
RSS feeds to obtain the information about what's going on in my
areas of interest.
I am much more selective about what parts of formal publications I
read.

> 4) What are the top 5-8 blogs that you read?

A. Catalogablog

C. Open Access News
(http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html) -- by far the
most useful thing I read in any format
librarian.net
Caveat Lector (http://cavlec.yarinareth.net/)
T. Scott (http://tscott.typepad.com/)
Library Stuff (http://www.librarystuff.net/)
Library Law (http://blog.librarylaw.com/)

E. Information Wants to be Free
Lifehacker
UBC Academic Search Google Scholar Blog
LISNews.org

G. Walt at Random, Thingology (LibraryThing's ideas blog),
Tennant's Digital Libraries, Peter Scott's Library Blog, One Big
Library, Lorcan Dempsey's Weblog, LISNews.org, Information Wants to
Be Free, Hectic Pace

H. I set up an RSS Reader for the first time just since the
beginning of this year. I have 58 subscriptions! Now, not all of
these are turning out to be very helpful, but I had to see what I
liked and found the most useful. There are not very many people
blogging about serials issues, but there are a few related to
cataloging. Some useful blogs:
Cataloging Futures http://www.catalogingfutures.com/
Planet Cataloging http://planetcataloging.org/ is a aggregator for
blogs that have anything to do with cataloging. There are a lot of
good blogs included in this.
PennTags  http://tags.library.upenn.edu/ has a Cataloging list
http://tags.library.upenn.edu/tag/cataloging that includes some
Serials things. You can do a tag search and then subscribe to just
the ones that come up.

I like Hectic Pace http://blogs.ala.org/pace.php  for info about
library automation vendors

> 5) Are there podcasts that you listen to on a regular basis?

A. None

B. None

C. None

D. None

E. None

F. None

G. Not really, but ones I have listened to and/or recommend include
Library Geeks by Dan Chudnov, and the podcasts output as part of
the SirsiDynix Institute.

H. None

> 6) What other resources do you consult or recommend?

A. Catalogers Desktop, Classweb online
I'm also really excited about del.icio.us--I finally set up a page.
It's a way to store your bookmarks and create tags for it. Also,
since it's a "social bookmarking tool" you can see who else is
linking to the same sites you are. It'd be a good way for you to
get an idea of what people are using.

E. A good RSS Reader/aggregator. I use Bloglines.

F. Ulrichsweb.com

G. I am a huge fan of RSS because it saves me so much time and
money. Use a free RSS reader like Google Reader or Bloglines and
begin collecting library-related feeds.  You won't be sorry.

>
> Ann
>
> Ann Ercelawn
> Vanderbilt University Library
> phone:615-343-2088
> fax: 615-343-1292
> ann.ercelawn@vanderbilt.edu