2 messages, in reply to Sallie Alger:

Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 12:37:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: "<Christina McCawley>" <CMCCAWLE@WCU.BITNET>
Subject: SERIALS QUEST

 For people who may be stumped by Serials Quest like I was before I had the
 training, I decided to write and explain a little about it.

 Where I went wrong before was that I thought you had to go into the database
 at FAXON and look to see if they had the issue you wanted. That's not right at
 all. We have a student sit and add records to the data base on our hard disc
 for all our wants and our duplicates for exchange. The software is *very*
 user-friendly. When you are done, you just push a button (you need a modem)
 and the software creates a file to upload and sends it to the database at
 FAXON where it is compared with all the entries already there. The next day
 you get a fax that says that -- e.g. Univ. of Wyoming, or Texas A&M -- needs
 an issue which you have and would you please send it. Then there are other
 messages that say -- Temple, for example -- has an issue that you need. At
 that point you do go into the FAXON data base and type a message to be faxed
 to them asking them to send the issue you need.

 For every issue that you send out you get a $3.00 credit; every issue that you
 receive costs $7.00. The time involved to input the records seems to be
 minimal. We have one student who spends very little time keeping up with our
 dups and wants.

 You do have to keep your duplicates in order on a shelf so that you can
 retrieve an issue when someone wants it. And you do have to be prepared to
 send a certain number of issues out to other libraries. But to tell you the
 truth, the whole thing is rather fun.

 If anyone has any questions, please let me know.  We really love using Serials
 quest, now that we know how.

 Christina McCawley
 West Chester University, West Chester, PA
 cmccawle@wcu   cmccawle@wcupa.edu

____

Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 12:52:30 +0500
From: Maureen Price <hsec@FHS.CSU.MCMASTER.CA>
Subject: RE: Faxon Quest (Sallie Alger)

No, in our experience it was not cost effective.  We did find several
nursing back issues we needed, but in the long run, over the period of
l year in which we used it, we would have done as well financially just buying
the single back issues from a local jobber.
Maureen Price, Mohawk College-HSEC Library, Hamilton, Ont. Canada