Serials Scene

This blog ending

2004-03-30T10:39:00.000-05:00

Writing this blog has been a very productive enterprise for me, but the time has come for me to close things down. I recently accepted a solo librarian position, which won't have a whole lot to do with serials, and I won't have the time to keep up with things anyway (as you can tell by the absence of posts from the last month).

I hope that someone will decide to continue a blog specific to serials information. I think that this is a really good medium to pull together information from diverse arenas and present a sort of "one-stop shopping" environment for serialists.

Thanks for the opportunity!

Kim

Updates to NASIG Conference web site

2004-03-03T11:32:00.000-05:00

Information about Preconferences, Programs and Tours have been posted on the web site for the NASIG 2004 Conference in Milwaukee, WI. It sounds like it will be an interesting and productive conference.

More on exchanges, etc.

2004-02-09T08:43:00.000-05:00

As an addendum to the information on the new serials gift and exchange discussion list, I later became aware of this site, Back Issue & Exchange Services, which is part of Birdie MacLennan's Serials in Cyberspace.

Maps and area codes

2004-01-30T16:59:00.000-05:00

If I'm not careful, I'll end up spending hours poring over the nationalatlas.gov web site. Maps are just too fascinating for their own good, and not only can you look at various maps on this site, but you can also create your own maps! How can you not be excited?

Take a peek at the North American Numbering Plan Administration's (NANPA) database of U.S. area codes . NANPA manages the area codes. Find out more about NANPA on their home page.

Seen at Resource Shelf

OpenURL Standard released for review by NISO

2004-01-30T16:48:00.000-05:00

The NISO stanadard Z39.88-200x "OpenURL Framework for Context-Sensitive Services" is currently being voted on (until March 10).

The abstract from the NISO website states:

"The proposed OpenURL standard is syntax to create web-transportable packages of metadata and/or identifiers about an information object. Such packages are at the core of context-sensitive or open link technology, which has recently become available in scholarly information systems. By standardizing the syntax, we will enable many other innovative user-specific services in this and other information fields."

New gift & exchange list

2004-01-27T08:55:00.000-05:00

A new gift and exchange discussion list, called GIFTEXCH, has been created at the University of
Michigan.

To sign up to the new list, please:

1. send an email to: giftexch-request@umich.edu
2. leave the subject line blank
3. in the body of message, type:
subscribe your first name and last name
(for example: subscribe Shixing Wen)

One of the issues I intend to discuss on the new list is the ethical issues related to library booksale. [They'll be discussing serials on this list, as well.] Anybody interested, please sign up.

Shixing Wen
Head of Exchange & Gift Section
University of Michigan Library

seen at SERIALST

the latest article about the Reed Elsevier problem

2004-01-22T14:49:00.000-05:00

From the Wall Street Journal: Reed Elsevier Feels Resistance To Web Pricing

I found this paragraph really interesting:

"Reed declines to discuss negotiations with individual universities. But it says some complaints about its bundled service are unfair. "It's like having a yearly magazine subscription, not liking the October issue and then saying, 'We want a refund,' " says Elsevier Science spokesman Eric Merkel-Sobotta."

I think this comparison is a little off. Granted, I don't currently manage a budget or actively purchase serials, but my understanding of the bundling process is a bit different than this man's. I don't think not wanting an entire title is really all that similar to talking about one issue of a title. Especially when you're talking about a comparison of thousands of dollars!

While ultimately, bundling electronic serials titles into packages does make the life of the individual library a bit easier in some ways, we should still be allowed a choice, especially if it better serves the purposes of our patrons. This is part of a disturbing trend that I've noticed in society at large over the past few years: the customer is not always right, and isn't even allowed a say in the situation without being called unreasonable, glared at, or generally patronized. With "unbundling", the company still makes money, and the library saves some money. What about this doesn't sound reasonable?

link seen at Resource Shelf

In the world of Open Access this week

2004-01-22T14:31:00.000-05:00

**A new issue of Open Access Now

**Presentations from the ALA Midwinter 2004: SPARC/ACRL Forum

**ALA, SPARC, ARL, AAHL, ACRL, and MLA ask Elias Zerhouni, the Director of the National Institute of Health, to support open access publishing. From the letter, "It is our belief that a growing knowledge economy depends as much, if not more, on the knowledge distribution power of the system as on its knowledge production power. Hence, it is essential to provide cost-effective access to and dissemination of scientific information in support of research and its economic and social applications. But the subscription-based journal model currently prevalent no longer maximizes access to research material. Nor is it economically sustainable."

seen at Resource Shelf

Two interesting articles from the latest D-Lib Magazine

2004-01-19T09:23:00.000-05:00

Library Periodical Expenses, Roger C. Schonfeld, et. al.

"What are the implications of the transition to electronic periodicals on non-subscription library expenditures, such as those required to select, accession, catalog, and provide ongoing access and services? New data on staff activities and costs were collected from eleven US academic libraries, and a life-cycle analysis was utilized to study the longer-term cost implications of the transition. We find that, on a per-title basis, the non-subscription costs of the electronic format are consistently and substantially lower than those of the print format. We conclude by considering the implications of the transition to electronic formats—and the consequent favorable cost differentials—on long-term preservation."

The Cost per Article Reading of Open Access Articles, Jonas Holmström.

"The measure for calculating cost per reading (CPR) of journal articles is reviewed, and a way to adapt this measure to articles in open access journals is proposed. The traditional subscription based publishing model is compared with the open access model, and similarities are identified and used when calculating CPR for the two different types of publishing. Challenges with interpreting statistics are discussed as well as the difficulty of estimating the number of readings from the number of downloaded articles. Finally, the potential use and implications of the CPR measure for open access publishers and institutions are discussed."

Power Point slides from the NELINET conference

2004-01-09T16:54:00.000-05:00

Links to the presentation slides from the day long NELINET conference in November, Serials Reloaded, have been put on NELINET's web site. Beware, some of the files are large!

Electronic Resources article

2004-01-09T16:43:00.000-05:00

From the latest issue of Computers in Libraries: The Many Facets of Managing Electronic Resources, by Marshall Breeding. This article is a good review of all the areas and vendors involved with providing access to electronic resources.

The main, and most interesting, point of the article highlights the fact that libraries can’t do everything they need to do related to electronic resources with just one system. Breeding’s vision is that “electronic resource management should be delivered through a set of interconnected modules that work together, sharing common data files or at least communicating with each other through open protocols.” That would be an interesting addition to current ILS systems, when you ponder it. However, since our current systems aren't truly integrated anyway (as far as my knowledge goes), maybe adding another module isn't a good idea. Something to ponder...

Seen at Resource Shelf.

Free access to OCLC publication

2004-01-09T16:39:00.000-05:00

For one week only, there will be FREE Full Text Access to the OCLC Systems & Services Journal.

Beginning on Monday (1/12/04) the full text of OCLC Systems & Services will be available free via Emerald's Journal of the Week program. Full text access begins with Vol. 10 No. 1 (1993) and continues through Vol. 19. No. 4 (2003). The latest issue is devoted to XML and electronic journals.

Seen at Resource Shelf
.

Some fun for the holidays

2003-12-16T16:00:00.000-05:00

If you haven't taken a look at the Library Weblogs page yet, the holiday downtime will be more fun if you do. This is an amazing list of library-related blogs from all over the world. A great opportunity to brush up on your language skills and read a blog in Spanish or Norwegian, or a host of other languages!

I'm leaving for the holidays this Friday, and may not have an opportunity to use the computer for good blog-fun, as opposed to evil work-related things. I'd like to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season, and I'll be back in January.

More from CONSER

2003-12-05T15:34:00.000-05:00

A few more items from the CONSER web site to know about:

The CONSER 2002/2003 Annual Report. Highlights include CONSER's 30th anniversary celebration in Toronto at ALA, and news about AACR2 and the Aggregator-Neutral record.

An updated version of Module 31 of the CONSER Cataloging Manual, which pertains to electronic serials, was posted in the fall. This version includes information pertaining to the Aggregator-Neutral record, and even has a definition of "blog" in the Glossary.

NASIG Conference web site

2003-12-05T15:12:00.000-05:00

NASIG sent out an email today about next year's annual conference (slightly edited by me):

"The NASIG 2004 Conference Web site is now up and running! You'll also find a link to it on the NASIG web site. The conference Web site is currently a work in progress, so check back frequently for updates, or watch for messages on NASIG-L. Questions about the conference should be directed to cpc@nasig.org."

I'm originally from Milwaukee, and can't wait for this conference as an excuse to be back in town. Downtown Milwaukee does have a lot of nice things to offer, and with a few festivals going on concurrently (don't miss Polish Fest!), you'll be hard pressed to squeeze everything in between conference programs. Don't forget to bring a sweater, because it's always "cooler by the lake"!

CONSER at ALA

2003-12-04T19:24:00.000-05:00

Here is the listing of CONSER meetings at ALA Midwinter in San Diego. I don't believe that all of the meetings are open to the public, but it would be worth it to attend those that are.

CONSER summit in 2004

2003-12-04T18:56:00.000-05:00

While this is an invitation only conference, the purpose of the PCC-sponsored 2004 CONSER Summit on Serials in the Digital Environment is to "bring together representatives from all aspects of the serials industry...with leaders in the library community to explore the control of electronic serials in libraries."

CONSER has done quite a bit to help define and reign in the challenge that is the cataloging of serials and electronic resources. I'm really interested in the future development and use of the Aggregator-Neutral record, which I'm sure will be discussed in depth, and I can't wait to hear more about the discussions in general.

New issue of NASIG newsletter

2003-12-04T09:10:00.000-05:00

The latest issue of the NASIG Newsletter is now available--and anyone can look at it! (access was restricted to members previously).

The Dec. issue contains information on:

NASIG 19th ANNUAL CONFERENCE (2004)
NASIG 18th Annual Conference (2003)
NASIG PROFILES
NASIG AWARDS
OTHER SERIALS NEWS

You can link to the issue from the "Publications" link on the NASIG homepage.

Here are links to the PDF and the HTML versions of this issue.

UK Conference in February

2003-12-04T09:04:00.001-05:00

If you happen to be in London at the end of February, here's an interesting sounding conference sponsored by the UK's Association of Subscription Agents and Intermediaries. Seen on SERIALST.

Find the full details of the conference on the ASA's site.

The Money Trail - Cost and Value in Journal Information Provision
23/24 Feb 2004 London Programme

Session 1: Research funding and the acquisition of knowledge
How research is funded. Bahram Bekhradnia, Director, Higher Education
Policy Institute
The acquisition of knowledge. Michael A. Keller, Director of Academic
Information Resources, Stanford University
The value of information. Natalie Ceeney, Director of Operations and
Services, The British Library

Session 2: The Publishing of research information
The publishing process and how publishers price journals? Sue Corbett,
Publishing Director, Blackwell Publishing
Do not-for-profit publishers offer better value? Jerry Cowhig, Director,
Institute of Physics Publishing

Session 3: Funding the libraries
Economics of open access: gauging the impact on academic library budgets. T. Scott Plutchak, Director, Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences,
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Consortium finance the way ahead or a dead end? Thorsteinn Hallgrimsson, Deputy National Librarian, The National and University Library of Iceland
The virtual library is a reality : providing and funding a corporate
virtual library service. Roger Brown, Manager Contracts and Licences, Information Management, GlaxoSmithKline
Gathering up the individuals. Robbie Frazer, Director, Prenax

DAY 2
Session 4. Mergers and acquisitions
The role of venture capital and private equity. Derrick Holman, Consultant
The merger phenomenon - does size matter? David Warlock, Electronic
Publishing Services

Session 5: Improving the efficiency
Prioritising the spend. Christine Fyfe, Librarian, University of Leicester
Keeping research information VAT free. Teresa Hackett, The Frankfurt Group
Tailored services through licensing. Leah Halliday, User Support Manager,
EDINA
Intermediation improves efficiency, reduces cost. Debbie Dore, Swets
Information Services

Rollo Turner
Secretary General
Association of Subscription Agents and Intermediaries
10 Lime Avenue
High Wycombe
Bucks HP11 1DP
www.subscription-agents.org
Tel +(0)1494 534778
rollo.turner@dsl.pipex.com

Directory of Open Access Journals

2003-12-04T09:04:00.000-05:00

From the Resource Shelf:

Directory of Open Access Journals
Search/browse a directory of almost 600 open access publications. Browse by subject or by title. Since the directory is growing all of the time a handy list of "new titles" is also available. Individual entries contain direct links to the publications along with publisher, language, ISSN, keywords, and start year. Exactly what's included in the directory? From the site, "The Directory aims to be comprehensive and cover all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee the content. All subject areas and languages will be covered." This page contains detailed definitions along with directory selection criteria. By May, 2004 the directory will launch a searchable article index of material found in directory titles. The Directory of Open Access Journals was launched in May.

Cancelling Elsevier titles

2003-11-20T08:59:00.000-05:00

From this week's Info Today:

Cornell and Other University Libraries to Cancel Elsevier Titles

Along with this is last week's press release from SPARC announcing a collaboration with the Public Library of Science to increase efforts in scientific open access publishing.

As authors in the sciences (and other fields) increase efforts to publish for themselves and keep costs low, and publishers keep increasing prices on their journal titles, it will be interesting to see how things play out as these two tidal waves crash into each other. Will we see publishers ceasing titles as less and less is published in them, or perhaps working with authors and other parties to arrive at pricing solutions that reach a happy medium?

Being the cynic that I am, I don't see either one of these options happening. I do see open access publishing increasing at an exponential rate in the future, which will perhaps increase one of the headaches in the lives of serials librarians, and that is keeping current of what's available, and making sure that our patrons can get to it. Here's where having strong partnerships with subject-area librarians and others we know in the field will be especially valuable.

NELINET Conference

2003-11-13T12:18:00.000-05:00

If you're in the New England area, this day-long conference sponsored by NELINET ("New England's library and information services network") sounds fantastic: Serials Reloaded: Cataloging, Management, and Access.

Logistics of many types prevent me from going, but I'm hoping that they'll post the presentations on the web.

More free electronic journals

2003-11-13T12:01:00.000-05:00

Free, if you're qualified, that is. From the email, it looks like they'd prefer that you were geographically located in the Southern hemisphere. When I took a peek at the site itself, I discovered that the registration, while free, is almost like applying for a job, since you have to submit a C.V. If this is your area of study, however, I don't think that you can go wrong with having this kind of access to periodicals and papers.

From SERIALST:

"**** New service launches providing free access to online journals.****

GDN-North America's new Free Journal Access Portal enables social
science researchers based in developing or transitional countries to
access a searchable, full-text, online database of more than 120
well-known social-science journals, free of charge!

Created especially for GDNet Profile holders based in low or middle
income countries, the new Journal Access Portal aims to address the
difficulty faced by many researchers in the global south in accessing
journal articles to support their research.

The list of journals offered through the service includes Demography,
World Politics, The Journal of Democracy, Anthropological Quarterly,
Technology and Culture, and several regional-studies journals, among
many others.

If you would like to use the new service, but do not have a GDNet
Profile, you will need to first create one at:
http://www.gdnet.org/knowledge_base/researchers/create_a_profile/.

The Free Journal Access Portal is made available to GDNet Profile
holders by the Center for Global Development and the Global Development
Network-North America (GDN-NA), in cooperation with Project MUSE of the
John Hopkins University Press."

We hope you find this service a useful addition to GDNet's services.
Please let the GDNet team know if you have any comments on
gdni@gdnet.org.

If you are already an eligible GDNet Profile holder, you should have
received a separate email notification."

Finding serials info on the web

2003-10-30T15:28:00.000-05:00

Trying to easily figure out what serial title is indexed where (and your institution doesn't subscribe to Serials Solutions or a similar service)? Maybe you're looking for free, internet-based serials in specific subject areas? Here are a few resources that will help you out:

Jake
From the Jake website:
"jake is a reference source which makes finding, managing, and linking online journals and journal articles easier for students, researchers, and librarians. jake does this by managing metadata about online resources with a database union list, title authority control, and linking tools, as well as making it easy to customize for a specific library's holdings.

Put simply: jake makes it easy to create software which uses information about journals and online journal products."

When I started working on reference desks, I used jake all the time, and patrons loved it too! It's quick and provides accurate and complete information. Thank you, Yale!

LC Lists of News & Periodical Resources on the Web
This page is a list of links to current news sources, newspapers and periodicals, as well as the "Other News and Hybrid Lists" section, which surprises me by its brevity. However, in this "Other News" section, you will find links to lists such as Omnivore, which is a nicely put together list of links to news sources worldwide.

NewJour
I never really had an opportunity to use this resource, and after examining it for a bit, I'm really sorry about that. The purpose of NewJour is twofold: 1. to announce the publication and availability of new journal titles, both electronic and in print; 2. "an identification and road-mapping project for electronic journals and newsletters." I'm not sure if this includes e-zines as well, but a hunch tells me it doesn't.

Information about the ISSN

2003-10-22T16:19:00.000-04:00

There is lots of great information on both the international and US ISSN web sites.

Take a look at the information about the definition and use of the ISSN , on the US ISSN web site.

I learned a thing or two reading through the ISSN FAQ. I didn't know that the ISSN doesn't have any "hidden" meaning, like an ISBN does.

Last but not least, don't forget about the always entertaining activity of calculating the ISSN check digit. The check digit "guard[s] against errors caused by the incorrect transcription of an ISSN"--use it or lose it!

ISSN trivia

2003-10-22T16:10:00.000-04:00

As of 5 minutes ago (4:03 pm), there are 1,095,634 records in the ISSN register. Seen at the ISSN website.

RFID

2003-10-13T18:00:00.000-04:00

I had never really heard of RFID before a few weeks ago, although I found that I was familiar with it once I read some information, since it's absolutely everywhere. It has been around for quite a while, in different iterations. The Association for Automatic Identification and Data Capture Technologies has a good description of what this technology is and can do. There is a journal dedicated to the technology, but it's not free.

So presently, we put barcodes on pretty much everything in libraries, and enhanced RFID technology will be making its way into our buildings, if the increased presence of ads in library journals has anything to do with it. This would be great for enhanced locating of serials in general (however, I don't know of too many places that barcode every issue), and all items in remote storage facilities.

But there is a negative side, as we've seen with library circulation records and the Patriot Act. This article about
RFID technology in supermarkets gives a hint of what this could mean for libraries and our patrons. The thought that comes to my mind is the day when our state/school/etc. IDs are outfitted with this technology, and every time we pick up a product or book that also uses RFID, a connection is made and recorded somewhere. Not by the store or the library, but by the government, perhaps, which is saving all this information about what we're looking at in a big file somewhere. I'm sure this happens to some extent now, and we're completely unaware.

Managing aggregator records at Oregon State U.

2003-10-01T17:28:00.000-04:00

From the Sept. issue of D-lib magazine: Aggregate Record Management in Three Clicks. The abstract states: "the Oregon State University (OSU) library developed an aggregate record management application, dubbed the ERW, that allows libraries to take multiple aggregator record sets and produce a single, de-duplicated data set containing custom MARC data defined by the individual library."

This is a really interesting sounding project that significantly reduced the amount of time technical services staff have to "touch" a record for an e-journal contained in an aggregator database. Patrons love it, but as the library has acquired more resources, difficulties have emerged with their system. Very interesting read.

The cost of scholarly journals and publisher mergers

2003-10-01T17:19:00.000-04:00

From Current Cites:

Susman, Thomas M., David J. Carter, and Ropes & Gray LLP, et. al.Publisher Mergers: A Consumer-Based Approach to Antitrust Analysis Washington, DC: Information Access Alliance, 2003. (http://www.informationaccess.org/WhitePaperV2Final.pdf). - This report discusses the critical importance of the wide dissemination of legal and research information, analyzes the skyrocketing cost of scholarly journals and its effect on libraries' ability to purchase these journals, examines the roles of publisher mergers in such price increases, and proposes new criteria for antitrust regulators to use in evaluating publisher mergers that are based on how libraries make collection development decisions. - CB

Tools you can use

2003-09-21T17:56:00.000-04:00

I really like this page: Tools for Serials Catalogers, by Ann Ercelawn at Vanderbilt. Neatly organized and highly usable.

How would FRBR function?

2003-09-21T17:50:00.000-04:00

This is something I've been mulling over quite a bit lately, especially after reading the OCLC research paper Concept of a Work.... [This paper was also published in the Spring 2003 (vol. 27, no. 1) issue of Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services. ]

Combine for a moment the idea of FRBR's hierachical record structure, which emphasizes "the entities, relationships, and attributes the bibliographic record is intended to describe" with CONSER's design of the aggregator-neutral record. If we can have a "master" record for a serials title that's in an aggregator database, why can't we treat everything like that? My thought is that there would be a record simply for the title of the work, which a library would download, and then brief records that are linked to this "master" record are created at the local level.

Now, let me say that I never completely got to the end of this thought because it gets really complicated quite quickly. What information would exactly be represented in this "master" record? Ideally, you'd want to be as general as possible, and while multiple 260 fields would help identify numerous publishers, how would an institution accurately represent which publisher they hold? MARC Holdings statements might be useful here. Who would be creating these records? We could say "The Library of Congress", or a group of libraries in a CONSER-like program may contribute, but is that truly feasible? Not to mention how expensive all this effort could get.

I know I'm not the first to have these thoughts, but I haven't posted lately because I've been trying to come to something resembling a conclusion to some of my questions, and the only answer I can come up is to read more of what's going on in this area. I'm hoping to flesh this idea out more later, if it's reasonable.

LITA Top Tech Trends

2003-09-09T16:48:00.000-04:00

Exciting find of the day!

Because so many of the programs I wanted to go to at ALA Annual this past summer were seemingly miles away from each other, I missed some things I really wanted to hear about, but the door was opened for programs I had never even planned on attending. The LITA Top Technology Trends 2003 is one of these programs. The room was packed, and a lot of information was given to the audience. It was a great way to be brought up to speed in areas I normally don't get to work with, like wireless technology and metasearch engines.

The strange thing is this web page though--you have to scroll over to read the entire text. I was surprised to see this on LITA's site.

Some licensing resources

2003-09-07T19:02:00.000-04:00

These are two main resources I consulted with during the summer for to learn more about the issues surrounding the licensing of electronic resources in libraries. They were immensely helpful and made me familiar with an area I have never worked with before. As we all know, this is an incredibly challenging area, but if you enjoy haggling over the purchase price of something in general, I think you already have a relevant skill in dealing with publishers--stamina!

Liblicense-- A collection of documents developed by a team of librarians to assist all librarians who have the responsibility of reviewing and negotiating the license agreements for electronic resources for their institutions. The team is lead by Ann Okerson, Associate University Librarian at Yale, who is very well known in this area.

International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC)--A respected project from Yale. From its website: "the Coalition serves primarily higher education institutions by facilitating discussion among consortia on issues of common interest"--the big issue being matters concerning electronic resources in libraries.

New issue of ALCTS Online

2003-09-02T17:12:00.000-04:00

From an email I just received:

The newest issue of the ALCTS Newsletter Online is now available on the ALCTS Web site at, click on the Newsletter logo.

In this issue:
--Reports from Annual Conference
--Award Recipients
--Next Steps for Interest Groups
--New ALCTS Web Site Policy
--Ellen Rappaport Memorial Resolution
--Metadata Task Force Seeks Comments
--Collection Management Survey Results
--2004 Midwinter Symposium Planned

When I went to the newsletter, not every topic appeared, but I believe our system also chose this minute to go a bit screwy.

In case you're curious...

2003-09-02T13:07:00.000-04:00

...here's a little info about me. I started this blog to get my gears churning again, as it were. In my current position, I've found it too easy to not keep up with what's going on in the wider world of serials, and I also needed a productive reason to be wandering around on the web.

Currently, I'm a cataloger at Princeton University, working on the retrospective conversion of serial analytics titles, which can be quite the challenge. I get to do other various serials-related things on occasion as well, which I enjoy as well. My interest with serials started when I was with the New York State Newspaper Project, and my goal is to work with current serials cataloging eventually (as opposed to recon).

I hope that through this outlet, I can provide information to other serials people as new as I am, and perhaps remind more experienced folk about things available on the web.

Aggregator-Neutral record web site update

2003-09-02T12:46:00.000-04:00

I was browsing throught the CONSER web site, and I noticed today that the "Record Creation and Modification" section of the Aggregator-Neutral record page was updated a few days ago. I haven't cataloged anything electronic for awhile now, but seeing the developments that have been made in this area make me eager to get back to that format. This type of record should be very useful to everyone, and keeping most of the local information in the holdings record will hopefully help our patrons.

However, most libraries will still maintain at least two different formats to display their holdings in the area of electronic journals (catalog record and web list), so the workload may not decrease, but maybe the intensity of some headaches will (catalog maintenance).

Serials Librarian issue on the web

2003-08-29T09:34:00.000-04:00

I didn't know this until just yesterday (!!), but the issue of Serials Librarian devoted to e-serials cataloging (vol. 41, nos. 3/4) is available free on the web. It's a very large .pdf file, so if you have an older computer, like me, be patient while it loads.

Serials in Cyberspace

2003-08-29T09:24:00.000-04:00

Even though some of the links are outdated, Serials in Cyberspace is a great resource to finding information on electronic journals, etc.

Ms. MacLennan is also the moderator of SERIALST, a listserv for all things and people related to serials.

From the page:

"About this page: Serials in Cyberspace is comprised of selective listings of web sites with electronic journal collections and services both inside and outside the U.S., miscellaneous collections and resources, selected ejournal titles and other web pages concerning serials that may be of interest to librarians. It was first developed in 1994 by Birdie MacLennan to accompany an article, "Electronic Serial Sites: Collections, Resources, and Services," that first appeared in the ARL Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters and Academic Discussion Lists, 4th ed., May 1994. As web sites with serials content continue to proliferate at a phenomenal rate, it has been impossible to add or keep track of them all. This represents a small segment of selected resources that I have found useful as a serials librarian. This site continues to be maintained and updated on an irregular basis by Birdie MacLennan (to whom any comments or corrections may be sent); it is hosted by the University of Vermont. Last update: May 8, 2003."

ALA ALCTS program slides

2003-08-27T17:43:00.000-04:00

In the spirit of my "catching up": ALA ALCTS has posted the program slides from the Annual Conference in Toronto. Unfortunately, I only got to attend about a half hour of the FRBR program, and none of the others because of schedule conflicts (i.e., committee meetings!).

FRBR

2003-08-26T17:04:00.000-04:00

While there isn't a solid relationship between the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and serials yet, the issue is being pursued by the CONSER FRBR Task Force.

For more general information and updates on FRBR, the Library of Congresshas updated some aspects of its reports, including the FRBR Display Tool.

I myself am still struggling to completely understand the concepts surrounding FRBR as it is currently outlined pertaining to books. Adding serials to the mix is a given, especially with all the work that's been done to the AACR2r regarding serials and continuing resources in the last few years. Anything that will help our patrons better understand what they're looking at in the online catalog can only enchance the service our libraries are trying to provide.

ANSI/NISO Z39.71 -1999

2003-08-21T09:32:00.000-04:00

From the NISO website:

Holdings Statements for Bibliographic Items
Equivalent international standard: ISO 10324

Abstract: Specifies display requirements for holdings statements for bibliographic items to promote consistency in the communication and exchange of holdings information. The standard applies to holdings statements for bibliographic items in any physical or electronic medium. It may be applied to electronic resources available to an institution, either under its control, or available under other arrangements. It applies to both manual and automated means of recording holdings. This new standard replaces both the Serial Holdings Standard Z39.44 and the Non-Serials Holdings standard Z39.57.

There's been some discussion on SERIALST this week about this standard, which in fact allows more flexibility than in the past, mainly due to the fact that it works with the different formats of a resource. How it displays to your patrons is still up to the way you can make your ILS work for your library.

I have to agree with the people in the list discussion who say standards are a good thing. Yes, standards can sometimes be limiting to the groups utilizing them and limited in how they function, but I don't think libraries would function nearly as efficiently as they do without the myriad of standards we work with. Granted, a lot of people will say that libraries in fact don't function efficiently, and I can't argue with that, either. However, standards, especially as they can apply to our catalogs, help our users immensely, I believe. One can use any library catalog in the world, language notwithstanding, and understand what information is being provided, because cataloging standards outline what and where it should be in a record for a resource.

The technical side of all of this is another world of problems entirely. We have standards, yes, but if the way that information is displayed (especially concerning various formats of serials) is confusing and not intuitive, then we could say that we're really _not_ helping our patrons. This situation is one that we've been discussing for years, and I have some hope that the implementation of FRBR may answer some of these issues.

Longer ISBN numbers

2003-08-19T16:05:00.000-04:00

This was approved back in May, and I'm sure it's been mentioned in other places. I've got some catching up to do. ISO 2108, the International Standard Book Number is being revised.

From the NISO web site:

"As of January 2005, the U.S. article numbering authority, the UCC, will begin to move the ubiquitous UPC barcode to the UCC/EAN-13 international standard. By January 2005 retailers will have to be equipped to read the 13 digit barcode and companies trading non-book goods will be using a 13-digit identifier. Extending the ISBN to 13-digits keeps the book industry in synch with the larger (and global) business and retailing communities."

More complete info on how to get ready for the new ISBN

I can't speak authoritatively as to how much this will impact current library systems that are in place, but my first thought is that it probably won't.

Digital Licensing Online course

2003-08-18T18:07:00.000-04:00

From the SERIALST list serv today. This sounds like it would be a good class for someone who may work in a library with limited professional development budget (and what budget isn't limited these days?) and either works in this area of the field, or has an interest.

** Announcement: Digital Licensing Online **

Copyrightlaws.com is pleased to announce its second
offering of a unique online course on Digital
Licensing.

Dates: September 22 2003 to November 20 2003
Fee: US$ 99.00

The course is designed for information professionals
who wish to learn more about licensing digital and
online content - such as periodicals, databases and
images - without attending an in-person seminar. The
target audience includes librarians, archivists,
publishers, photographers, web site owners, content
developers, and those in museums, educational
institutions and governments.

Participants will receive three e-lessons per week for
nine weeks; each e-lesson has a self-marking quiz.
Participants also will have access to an exclusive
online discussion list on the course content.

Course topics will include:
* The concept of digital licensing
* Developing a licensing strategy
* Global aspects of licensing
* Key concepts in licensing arrangements
* Key clauses
* Boiler plate clauses
* Tips in negotiating licenses
* Managing licenses

This course is designed by Lesley Ellen Harris, author
of several books (including Digital Licensing: A
Practical Guide for Librarians, published by ALA in
2001). For further information on Lesley and her
work, see:

For registration and course details, visit acteva.com
or email:seminars@copyrightlaws.com