Date: 03 Sep 93 15:42:57 EDT
From:  <CGLASS@VUNET.VINU.EDU>
To:    <serialst@uvmvm.uvm.edu>
Subject: Addr: intro/question

Hello--I joined this list yesterday, so I want to say "hi"
etc.

I have been running our serials dept. for six years. We are
a very small library, and I am not professional staff. I handle
all the magazines, binding, microforms, telephone directories,
pocket parts/reference updates, reference newsletters, indexes,
ordering, bills, claims, renewals, union listing, NOTIS updating,
and newspapers. I process everything myself and I supervise a
student who puts it all out for me. We have approximately 600
subscriptions. I am part of the technical services dept. here,
and my boss is a professional staff person. The other people
in my department (2) do computer work, ordering, and manual
processing for the books. The professional librarians (my
boss, a circ. coor., two ref. libs, and the director) make
the decisions as to what to order, renew, and cancel, and I
do the actual processing of those. I really enjoy this type
of work, especially since we are on NOTIS now, and I can
check in my stuff on that (we don't have acquisitions or
serials--we just put it on a DHLD record). I also helped
with our book barcoding.

I have been looking for a way to communicate with other people
who do my type of work ever since I started here, without luck--
everyone seems to do things differently than we do it here :)
I would like to hear from anyone who feels like talking about
serials work in general, NOTIS, OCLC, pricing, etc.

OK--now for my question--our library is considering switching
several (about 40) of our microform subscriptions from UMI to
Newsbank, who is much cheaper. They have told me to do this.
While I have been working on it I have noticed that Newsbank
seems to not realize that some publications run on something
other than a calendar year, have a title incorrect in their
title listing, and just a few other small things that have
added up to make me very wary of going in that direction.
I told our acq. lib about this, and he said he would call
some other libraries around here that have the Newsbank
service to see what their opinion is. I feel that it is
my responsibility to let them know of a problem that might
occur before it does, even though it is not my decision where
to purchase things, and he agreed with me on this, but I
wanted to solicit opinions on here too. Have any of you
switched? How is the service? Are the customer service
representatives knowledgeable about things the way UMI's
reps are? UMI has gotten so expensive that they want me to
do this mostly because it is so much less expensive, and
also the delivery is supposedly monthly instead of quarterly,
and it is free, and it is for every title, not just some.

I would really appreciate any advice/comments anyone can
give me, about this problem or anything else.

Nice talking with you :)

--Cyndi