kathleen thorne <KATHLEEN@SJSUVM1.BITNET> wrote:
> ......  The fun is in getting the necessary years of experience to
>be able to recognize each of these kinds of elements; but that's what makes
>serials cataloging such a lovely intricate and sophisticated game!  Of course,
>as is currently happening here, sometimes serials cataloging is handed over
>willynilly to support staff with no serials cataloging background and the
>whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket remarkably quickly and the support
>staff/inexperienced monograph cataloger-dept. head don't have the ability
>to even see the chaos they're creating.

Personally, I see our support staff being called on to do more and more
complex work that prof. librarians no longer have time for.  Some (most/
many) of the support staff around here are long-term, highly trained, and
quite capable.  Seems to me that good management and training are the real
& key issues here -- not necessarily whether or not folks are support staff.

BTW, remember those SERIALST surveys I asked you all to fill out a couple
of weeks ago? (btw, it's still on the fileserver (message to listserv@
uvmvm.uvm.edu  that reads:  get serialst survey   -- if any of you are
really late stragglers and still want to complete one, I'm still reading
and tabulating them!).  I've tabulated slightly more than a third of them
(94 out of 256 replies) and am finding that between 1/4 and 1/3 of the
subscriber responses to the SERIALST survey are from library support
staff -- and of these, some are in high-level positions (i.e., heads
of serials depts.).

Just some random and philosophical thoughts from a former support staff
person on a Friday afternoon.

    Birdie MacLennan
    SERIALST Coordinator            bmaclenn@uvmvm.uvm.edu
    University of Vermont           bmaclenn@moose.uvm.edu