---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 11:48:11 -0600 From: Dan Lester <DLESTER@BSU.IDBSU.EDU> Subject: Guidelines for Journal Usage (Albert Henderson) -Reply Date: Tue, 2 Jul 1996 18:38:19 EDT From: Albert Henderson <70244.1532@COMPUSERVE.COM> You say don't trust your faculty to provide accurate information about what they use and its importance to library patrons. If I recall correctly, your study reported that every serial in your library had been identified by at least one faculty member as important for a teaching or research program. Nonetheless you canceled over 20 percent of the ----------------------- First, faculty do what many people do, including most of us. We tell what we WANT, or what we THINK WE NEED, not what we truly need. I'd bet that the vast majority of readers of this list have books that they bought because "they needed them" or they "just had to read them" but are still sitting unread and unopened on a shelf, by the bed, etc. I'll not lie and say that I don't have some of those myself. I can give you an example regarding research scientists, guys who have received hundreds of thousands in grants for research in their fields. They said that we just HAD TO HAVE a particular journal in their field that cost $6500 per year. We said that we didn't have the money, especially since NO ONE else in their large department besides these two cared about it, but had dozens of other requests for less expensive journals in the queue. We came to an agreement that we'd put money in a special account with CARL Uncover so that they could order any articles they wanted from the journal. We trained them on Uncover (which is VERY simple in case you've never tried it). We trained their GAs on Uncover. They have internet connected PCs on their desks and fax machines in their offices, so they have the ultimate in convenience and the perfect price: free to them. In over two years they've ordered less than 500 dollars worth of articles, but they still complain that Uncover "is hard to use", despite that we train freshmen successfully to use it every day. What I'm sure they mean is "I don't wanna change, dammit, and the library has to do it my way or else." Well, times change, like it or not, and they'll have to adapt. I do NOT feel sorry for them. =================== You mean that this is an arithmetical exercise in 'survival of the fittest' journals that has nothing to do with the qualitative view of your patrons .... the use by a research department is no more valued than the use by an undergraduate, or a visitor. ----------------- That's right. If I can satisfy hundreds of undergraduates for 6500 worth of journals they need to complete assigned lessons, I'll do that before I satisfy one PhD researcher who balks at trying something newer and better and faster, who won't contribute any research overhead funds, and is a consistent _prima dona_ and world class whiner. ===================== and in the unashamed intent of the study to justify the cancelation of subscriptions and the highhandedness of the administrators who simply hand you marching orders. ---------------------- Well, if your boss told you to cut $200,000 in journals, what would you do? Try to put the orders through anyway? Tell him or her to go to hell? Refuse to do it? Quit in protest? Somehow I doubt it. And the boss is in the same situation. And, for that matter, so is the VP and the President if the Board or the Legislature has ordered the cuts. Sometimes there IS no choice. You may not realize that the only free money in university budgets is for "capital expenditures" and "supplies" and "temporary help". There is usually little in supplies or temporary help, so the big chunks are "capital expenditures", which in most states includes books. Non temp staff can NOT be cut quickly, as they have legally enforcable contracts or have protection under Civil Service or other laws. Therefore, the researchers who want equipment and the library materials budget are what take the biggest hit. And, until there are major legal changes, which seems unlikely, it will continue the same way. ================= Tony Stankus has recommended talking, personally, to each faculty member and negotiating each journal of interest that might be canceled. ----------------------- Well, when you figure out how to do that, and figure out how to get the differing opinions (as indicated above) even within a discipline reconciled, and multiply that by 50 or more departments, write us an article on your secret and become loved by librarians. Over the years I've had more than one resolution by the department sent to the library, saying "we can't decide what to cut, you decide it". So we did. And of course they still bitched while conveniently forgetting that they'd been asked and had decided not to decide. ==================== Never mind publishers. My question is do you sympathize with researchers, students and faculty? Does your library collection enable or limit their opportunities? Do the members of your university have a say in how the budget is drawn? ----------------------------- Yes, I sympathize with some researchers, with many faculty, and with most students. Your second question is unanswerable as it is stated. We do everything possible within limits of budget and staff to get people what they need, AND what they want. Of course we don't facilitate them as well when their needs are urgent due to their own procrastination or incompetence, simply because those needs are often impossible to fill. (In case you aren't aware of it, the people with last minute needs, writing the term paper the night before it is due, are NOT figments of librarians' imaginations. ======================= Increases in the volume of publications are generated by increased research expenditures, not by publishers. Why haven't library expenditures kept pace with research spending?? --------------------------------- I give up, why? Again, if you have the magic answer to that problem, let us know. As soon as we know it we'll order more journals from you. AND, you'll be famous and revered in the library world. cheers cyclops Dan Lester, Network Information Coordinator Boise State University Library, Boise, Idaho, 83725 USA voice: 208-385-1235 fax: 208-385-1394 dlester@bsu.idbsu.edu OR alileste@idbsu.idbsu.edu Cyclops' Internet Toolbox: http://cyclops.idbsu.edu "How can one fool make another wise?" Kansas, 1979.
