I am a "systems librarian" for a small college that is one of 6 institutions in
a consortium that to date has relied on a PRINTED union list of periodicals and
that has been tossing around the idea of loading each members holdings on one
server for electronic access to the entire consortium's serials VS. the notion
that very soon we will be able to do a similar search in our opacs or our
"web-pacs" (or some other similar client) with simultaneous Z39.50 searching.

In interest of a committee I am on to explore the pros and cons of each
technology and as a master's student taking a serials class and writing a
paper--I would be very interested in hearing from others who are in the same
transitional period (seems the traditional tape load method may be out-dated
VS. simultaneous Z39.50 searching isn't exactly in high-gear yet).  What are
your reasons for leaning one way or another, etc. ??

Also, any news or details on OCLC's FirstSearch LDR database would be helpful.

Thank you,

Sheri Schneider
Library Systems Coordinator
Cressman Library
Cedar Crest College
Allentown, PA 18104
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MS/MSIS Student
College of Information Science and Technology
Drexel University
Philadelphia, PA 19104