2 messages:
_______

Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 16:13:56 +0400
From: "Naomi K. Kietzke" <nkietzke@EMAIL.UNC.EDU>
Subject: Re: Uniform title authorities (Kathleen Thorne)

On Fri, 13 Oct 1995, Kathleen Thorne wrote:

> 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.
        If you would change the phrase "support staff" above to
"inexperienced staff", Kathleen, I'd be in your corner.  As it is,
though, you seem to be implying that support staff make a greater mess
than would an inexperienced person with a Master's degree.  I've had to
educate enough MLS holders on the intricacies of series and serials
(BEFORE I got my degree) to EVER buy that premise.
        No offense taken, just a clarification,

Naomi Kietzke        Library Technical Assistant, Serials Cataloging
UNC-Chapel Hill                                 nkietzke@email.unc.edu
To make a bad day worse, spend it wishing for the impossible. --Bill Watterson

______

Date: Sat, 14 Oct 1995 12:11:57 -0400
From: Pamela Simpson <pse@PSULIAS.PSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: In support of support staff

 kathleen thorne <KATHLEEN@SJSUVM1.BITNET> wrote:
>  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 th

I don't think Kathleen is trying to say here that the problem is with
support staff per se-- after all she mentions the monograph cataloger and
the dept. head too, but the problem is with handing things over willy-nilly
to anyone who does not have adequate serials training. There is a huge
conceptual difference between the bibliographic treatment of materials which
are monographic in nature and those which are serial in nature. Serials are
not a format. Serials can and do exist in any format:  print, computer file,
map, video, micro, etc. It is a mistake to assume that switching between
monographic work and serials work is as doable as switching between formats
within the monographic universe. As Crystal Graham has pointed out so well
in her recent paper, cataloging serials requires an entirely different
philosophical approach. The way of thinking about a record that must
represent many items, some of which are not in hand and some of which have
not even been published yet, is fundamentally different from the way of
thinking required to represent one static item, or a finite set of static
items. I believe that it takes a great deal of training and experience to
deal effectively with these varied and capricious items. Anyone with the
aptitude and desire to learn to work with serials could learn to do it, but
not without a significant commitment to the time necessary for training and
not unless it will continue to be a major portion of that person's work
load. Trying to do serials for a few hours a week is like trying to learn a
foreign language in 15 minutes a day. Contrast this approach with moving to
another country and immersing yourself in the language for a year, and you
have an idea of the level of commitment I am talking about.  Serials
represent more than half of many academic library acquisitions budgets. The
information published in serials is of vital importance to library users. As
both librarians and support staff are being asked to do more and more with
less and less, as serialists we need to be sure that the bibliographic
control of serials does not become disbursed to people who don't have enough
serials training  or who don't regularly spend a significant portion of
their time working with serials. If we don't do this, I believe that the
quality of access to information issued serially will suffer.

                                 Pamela Simpson
                                 Serials Cataloger

                                 Penn State University

                                 E506 Pattee Library

                                 University Park,  PA 16802-1805
                                 (814) 865-1755  FAX: (814) 863-7293

                                  PSE@PSULIAS.PSU.EDU