---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 09:03:59 -0500
From: Stephen D Corrsin <sdc16@COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: claims study?

At Midwinter, a vendor rep told me about a study he said had been done a
few years ago by, I believe, a university in Maine, with the cooperation
of a vendor. The study concerned the university library's serials claiming
practices. The vendor rep told me that "over 90%" of the claims were
"invalid" -- apparently meaning too early, or for issues that didn't exist
(e.g., issue #5 of a quarterly), or for titles that were not actually on
order with the particular vendor.

This report sounds somewhat exaggerated to me; the rep was trying to
convince me that automated claims systems (or rather as in our case,
NOTIS, not generated
automatically but lists are generated from which staff produce claims)
create a lot of work to little purpose.

Can anyone confirm the existence of such a study, or can provide the
details for anything similar?

thanks, in advance,
Steve Corrsin
Head, Serials Acquisitions
Columbia University