---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 09:55:40 GMT
From: Lesley Tweddle <LTWEDDLE@AUCEGYPT.EDU>
Subject: VENDORS PLEASE JOIN IN!

Thank you Jeanette for excavating my posting from its "New
Periodicals Librarian" bundle and re-poting it under its original
header.  I too had hoped it would stimulate the vendors to join in.
They have a story to tell, no doubt.  Already affected by the
cancellations due to high publishing prices, they now face having
Internet access sidestep the business they depend on.

Salaries are the usual victims of the managerial knife in thin times,
cutting back on quantity or quality, or redistributing it into
the planning of big strategies to avert disaster, leaving too little
for the boring business of getting the goods to the customer.

Libraries ought to know all about that.  If you ask our readers what
they want, chances are they'll say very simply, To find the book fast
and in its right place on the shelf.  Which librarian built a glittering
career on _that_?

Providing staff quantity and quality at the level which will please
serials librarians, costs the vendor.  Is there a commensurate benefit
to the vendor?  Do serials librarians sway the library's final choice?
Or do the bosses' eyes gleam at the "bargain offer"?  The boss has a
boss, who may not be a librarian at all.

Vendors and libraries will need each other for quite a while still.
The more we know about each other, the better.

Lesley Tweddle
Serials Librarian
American University in Cairo Library