Date:    Mon, 17 Feb 92 14:10 EST
From:    "Carol P. Hawks" <CHAWKS@OHSTMVSA.BITNET>
Subject: Electronic Journals

Of course, Christian and I have been in agreement so much recently
that I'm pleased to have found something to disagree with him
about!

It's possible that e-journals may be a passing fad.  Nevertheless,
if you consider your department a "progressive" Acquisitions/
Serials Dept. (as we like to think of ourselves at OSU), you cannot
ignore them.   We have asserted ourselves as the acquirers of this
information.

Briefly, let me explain what we do which is very similar to what
Gail McMillan presented at NASIG last summer.  We issue the request
to subscribe through an acquisitions e-mail address.  We receive
the issue, forward it to cataloging for cataloging, edit the issues
and transfer them for listing on a university computer information
menu.

After months on planning for this activity on 13 journals, I have
the following issues to deal with that one of my staff, Sheryl
Williams, has compiled.

1.  Storage of new e-journals or "comes with" titles until
selection decisions are made including the time lag to arrange the
set up for selected titles with Academic Computing.

2.  Title changes -- how to deal with the listings on the
University's menu?  What if cross references in the mode of 780 and
785 tags aren't supported?

3.  Time spent combining multi-part issues (this week alone we
received one 23-piece issue).  Each piece had to be strung together
with header information edited out.  We also received an eleven
piece issue with a piece NYP.  Do we post without the missing piece
or wait for it to become available?

I suspect that these are just the tip of the iceberg which lurks
beneath the surface of this new processing responsibility!

Carol Pitts Hawks
Head, Acquisition Dept.
The Ohio State University
1858 Neil Avenue Mall
Columbus, OH 43210
CHAWKS@OHSTMVSA