- Email: [email protected]
Serials Management Transitions in Turbulent Times
The Balance Point Serials Management Transitions in Turbulent Times Lisa Spagnolo, Buddy Pennington and Kathy Carter, Contributors Sharon Dyas-Correia, Column Editor Available online 25 August 2010 This installment of “The Balance Point” presents descriptions of existing ideas and activities related to serials management during the current economic situation and with new digital priorities in medium to very large academic library systems. Contributors discuss current organization and activities related to traditional serials tasks, such as acquisitions, check-in, claiming and binding of print periodicals, and outline relationships to new activities precipitated by shifts to large-scale electronic resource acquisitions. Featured authors discuss reasons behind changes and provide commentary on progress, next steps and the benefits or drawbacks. Serials Review 2010; 36:161–166. © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Introduction
whatever challenges lie ahead. Buddy Pennington (electronic resources and serials librarian, University of Missouri-Kansas City) focuses on how the libraries he works for are navigating the transition from print to electronic serials, making changes and adjusting workflows and tasks accordingly. Kathy Carter (projects librarian, Bibliographic and Information Technology Services, University of Alberta) offers a view of a library system that is well on the way to transforming itself into a digital library and discusses many of the changes that have occurred along the way. She presents several questions for future research and consideration.
In January 2010 a series of fascinating and almost heated exchanges occurred on the SERIALST electronic discussion list and the ALCTS e-forum.1,2 The discussions centered on issues related to the ongoing and familiar debates of whether or not to check in, claim and bind, and were imbedded in larger conversations of the ways serialists are adjusting work to meet financial constraints and new priorities. It was evident from the amount and level of participation in the discussions that these topics are still controversial, extremely important and relevant to serialists. Several librarians from libraries of varying sizes and types, who participated in the discussions, were invited to contribute to “The Balance Point” in order to create a snapshot of the current state of ideas and activities related to check-in, claiming, binding, and otherwise adjusting to the current economic order. Contributors were asked to discuss current activities in the libraries they describe and to address the reasoning behind changes to cope with existing realities. The column editor suggested to authors that commentary on progress, next steps and the benefits or drawbacks envisioned for the current path of the library they represent would be of interest to readers. Lisa Spagnolo (acquisitions librarian, University of California Davis, Shields Library) describes the evolution to the current serials scenario at the University of California Davis. She presents a hopeful view of the future for the library system she describes and offers a snapshot of a library that is ready, or almost ready, to tackle
Adjusting Serials Operations in a Time of Uncertainty Lisa Spagnolo We are hit with news of budget reductions in libraries at every turn: branch closures, collection reductions, curtailed service hours. In technical services operations we have faced hiring freezes, if not layoffs, and are far beyond the concept of trying to do more with less. We are either doing less with less or fundamentally changing how we do things—often both. What follows is an overview of our environment at the University of California, Davis, a description of our serials staffing and operations, and the trajectory that our services have taken in response to the challenges that have come our way in the recent years and for which we continue to plan going forward, not without some trepidation about the uncertain future.
Our Institution and Library Environment
Spagnolo is Acquisitions Librarian, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA; e-mail: [email protected]. Pennington is Electronic Resources and Serials Librarian, University Libraries, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, USA; e-mail: [email protected]. Carter is Projects Librarian, Bibliographic and Information Technology Services, Cameron Library, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB T6G 2J8, Canada; e-mail: kathy. [email protected]. Dyas-Correia is Head of Serials, University Libraries, University of Toronto, Toronto ON M5S 1A5, Canada; e-mail: [email protected].
The University of California, Davis, sits within the ten-campus system of the University of California and serves over 31,000 students. As a large land-grant research university with a medical school, we support patient care, teaching and advanced research in all subject areas, with notable strengths in energy resources, agriculture, veterinary medicine, and Native American studies.3
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We are home to a premier, world-class program in viticulture and enology, with strong ties to the California wine industry. The general library includes the Shields main library and three branch libraries: Physical Sciences and Engineering, Carlson Health Sciences, and the Blaisdell Medical Center Library, which is located about twenty miles away in Sacramento. A large percentage of our electronic resources (approximately 90 percent of journal titles) are negotiated and managed centrally through the California Digital Library. We participate in a distributed process to manage these resources and also manage electronic resources that are acquired locally for our campus outside of the consortia process (fewer than one hundred titles). We also process over 3000 print serials titles centrally for our main library and the branches. The serials acquisitions unit is located within a functionally based department of Collection Support Services (acquisitions units; maintenance and relocation; and preservation, conservation and binding), and includes five full-time equivalent (FTE) staff: one unit supervisor, one ordering and invoicing lead and three receiving assistants who perform check-in, claiming and subscription maintenance. Management of our electronic resources is networked across several departments. Two librarian positions support license coordination, access and activation, and cataloging, including management of record loads from our Shared Cataloging Program, which supports the UC system.
Further downstream, our binding operations have been grappling with significant reductions that have led to coordinated discussions across technical and public services to evaluate what material (both serials and monographs) can stand up in the stacks with minimal binding treatment. Decision-making is based as much as possible on physical criteria and anticipated use rather than past practice and tradition. We are adjusting our binding budget directly to local needs through conscious control rather than automatically applying binding treatments across categories of material. Occasional stacks reviews initiated by the maintenance unit and coordinated with the serials acquisitions unit have been very beneficial for controlling our most heavily used research journals. One significant review of our viticulture and enology collection not only identified titles that had ceased, but also surfaced journals that it would be better to order through a different vendor than the one currently used. This project was deemed a very valuable use of time and effort given that faculty working in this subject area are intensive and interactive users of the library, and this collection includes domestic and foreign titles not always represented by an electronic counterpart. Furthermore, the collection's visibility and the percentage of unique material justify a high level of management and control.
Responding to Organizational Change The technical services division has undergone a substantial amount of organizational change over the past several years, requiring all units, including the serials unit, to reassess tasks, reassign staff, and examine workflows. The serials unit absorbed the workload of the separate health sciences technical services unit in 2007 following a series of retirements in that branch. A small number of titles were transferred from the branch, and they were fairly easily absorbed by the serials unit. The staff and clientele of the Health Sciences Library were accustomed to hands-on service, however, so the idea of centralization of processing and its separation from the public service point required a period of adjustment. In 2008 a more comprehensive reorganization of technical services, which transformed monograph and serials operations from format-based into functional-based orientations, also incorporated a separate operation for the processing of government documents. Despite the increased workload and learning curve with respect to the government documents receiving routines, the serials unit was able to take advantage of flexible staffing with the new proximities brought by the reorganization. One staff person in monographs acquisitions was cross-trained in serials during a time when her monographs workload was waning. This assignment has provided us with an ability to maneuver in response to fluctuating needs and different cycles between monographs and serials.
Current Serials Activities Like many libraries, we have responded to the predominance of the electronic journal format with a corresponding reduction in our print subscriptions. As archives of journal content have developed and become relatively more stable, confidence has increased in dropping our duplicate print subscriptions and, where possible, unbundling print charges from electronic subscriptions. There has been cost savings resulting from this approach. More recently we have been identifying standalone print subscriptions to cancel for various reasons, including lack of use, changing collection needs and price. Titles acquired through our exchange program, which has been deemed too time-consuming to maintain in this climate, are included. Correspondence with exchange partners is on an as-needed basis, usually to terminate the exchange. Occasionally a title on exchange is converted to a paid subscription. Currently we are still maintaining serials check-in but at a reduced volume as a result of cancellations. Since we are centrally managing subscriptions for periodicals locations in a few branches, check-in is a natural extension of verifying the destination of a particular issue. Following a period of not claiming after a systems migration to a new integrated library system, we have structured and focused our claiming efforts in such a way as to be manageable and purposeful. We do not send automated claims from our system but have identified two opportunities in the workflow for claiming: at the time of invoice processing and at the time of check-in. During our invoice review, the ordering and invoice assistant will verify that issues have been coming before forwarding the invoice to accounting for payment. This procedure allows for rectification of any chronic non-delivery issues and presents an opportunity to consider moving titles from one subscription agent to another or from an agent to a direct order. We will also claim at the time of check-in if there are any missing issues of titles with monthly frequencies or longer. The claim file may be turned to during work lulls and usually claiming is focused narrowly (e.g., by vendor, housing location, etc.). Our overall claiming efforts add up to less than 5 percent of our total annual check-in volume.
Looking Ahead For the most part, we have been able to continue traditional tasks and balance our investment in the management of both print and electronic resources. We have been able to absorb the workloads of additional units in our most recent reorganizations and still withstand staffing reductions as a result of attrition. Two and three quarters FTE staff in the serials acquisitions unit alone have been replaced by cross-training staff from other units and modifying processes. We are ready to head into transformative territory, to consider what tasks we could be doing if we made a decision to rebalance our management of the print workflow, still a significant footprint throughout technical services. This may lead us to reassess traditional activities such as check-in and claiming, although we would likely continue these tasks in subject areas
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that are unique to University of California, Davis. Additional budget reductions, which are probable for the next fiscal year, might also force our hand to come up with creative staffing solutions in all areas of the library. Our electronic resources workflow, while working well because of our consortia and distributed model, would benefit from a more in-depth analysis to determine opportunities to transition print-based staff to new tasks. Looking beyond our campus, system-wide initiatives to coordinate technical services activities across campuses are getting underway with a view to reduce unintended duplication, maximize breadth in collections and leverage our staffing expertise in creative ways to meet the challenges ahead. The Next Generation Technical Services initiative seeks to extend our existing cooperative endeavors and re-envision our local efforts so that we operate more and more as a single enterprise providing services across the system.4 As we evaluate our print serials operations in this context, we may find that shifting this stream to the network level results in some degree of consolidation of checkin activities across campuses. Numerous issues that are outside the bounds of this article arise from these very early discussions. Many of the issues are tied to determining the best way to effectively deliver this format to patrons who are distributed geographically. At Davis we have not yet developed the synergistic workflows between serials acquisitions and interlibrary loan that would be required to support such a service on a larger scale. Overall, our trajectory of change has been opportunistic and incremental, both proactive and reactive. We have adjusted our serials workflows in the context of a multitude of factors, not only resulting from workflow analysis but also responding to organizational changes. While we continue to refine our serials activities within the acquisitions unit, we are also planning in a coordinated way with the rest of technical services and the library. As our system-wide discussions about the future of technical services develop from the conceptual stage to active planning and implementation, we are thinking about the resources and expertise we have within our units on a different scale. It is our hope that this fundamental shift in the work helps us to weather the difficult budgetary climate at the same time we are able to support the activities of our users. If we are not completely ready for the next challenge around the corner, we will be close.
functions of ordering and receiving periodicals and other subscription-based materials in all formats. It is also responsible for binding operations. Because the unit is responsible for subscription-based materials, it has grown to include the ordering and implementation of electronic resources as well as the management of related tools, such as an online journals portal, an OpenURL link resolver, and an electronic resource management (ERM) product. The serial acquisitions unit is also responsible for the access management of these electronic resources, working with vendors to troubleshoot issues with electronic resources, and collecting and compiling usage statistics to support collections decisions.
Our Growth in Electronic Resources Like most academic libraries, the University Libraries has experienced tremendous growth in electronic resources over the past several years. Since 2003 the number of online journals we provide access to has tripled from around 20,000 to over 60,000 unique titles. We now provide access to over three hundred databases and online journal and book collections. We have also recently begun to acquire online books in large numbers and provide access to nearly 200,000 unique online book titles. This dramatic growth occurred for a number of reasons. Since 2003, we have embarked on three “Big Deal” contracts, including Elsevier ScienceDirect, Wiley InterScience, and SpringerLink. These contracts added thousands of new online journal titles to our collection. We have also been the beneficiary of a significant budgetary increase from the university Office of the Provost. For the past two fiscal years, the bulk of the increase has been applied to purchasing new electronic resources. While we had a few NetLibrary collections and purchased the occasional online book, it was not until 2009 that we decided to get into the online book business by subscribing to collections, such as ebrary and Safari Tech Books. This new area of emphasis resulted in access to tens of thousands of new online books titles but also prompted us to evaluate how we provide access to and manage such large numbers of individual titles. A discussion on the growth of electronic resources in our library would not be complete without including the point that new tools were also acquired to manage these resources, and these new tools themselves required additional staff time and effort to maintain. In 2003, the library began using Serials Solutions to provide access to online journals. At that time, the cataloging units manually added and maintained MARC records for select online journals. As we increased the number of online journals we provided access to, the decision was made to end traditional cataloging for this class of materials and to rely on Serials Solutions to provide us with MARC records through monthly MARC updates to the library catalog. This service was deemed a success, and the decision was made in the summer of 2009 to expand it to include MARC records for online books as well. During this time we also implemented the Serials Solutions OpenURL link resolver, the Innovative Millennium ERM, and the Summon discovery tool (also from Serials Solutions). In all three cases, the serial acquisitions unit was and continues to be involved in the management of these tools.
Navigating the Serial and Electronic Resources Crossroads at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Buddy Pennington An Introduction to the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) UMKC is a medium-sized research university serving just over 14,000 students. The university has four libraries. Three of them are grouped into the University Libraries unit and include the Miller Nichols Library, the Health Sciences Library and the Dental Library. The university also has a law library that is included in the School of Law. The University Libraries has a centralized Technical Services Division that includes the traditional acquisitions and cataloging functions. Some of those functions related to periodicals, such as daily periodical check-in, are handled by staff at the health sciences and dental libraries. The Technical Services Division is divided into two acquisitions units, one for serials and one for monographs, and four cataloging divisions. The serial acquisitions unit is responsible for the traditional
Our Lack of Staffing While most academic libraries have seen growth in their electronic resources collections, the inverse has generally been true in terms of staffing. Generally, libraries have seen staffing maintained at existing levels or even reduced. Our experience has been the latter. In 2003 the serial acquisitions unit was composed of one librarian and three full-time staff positions. A student was shared between the serial and monographic acquisitions units. Toward the end of 2003, the serial acquisitions unit lost a staff member as a result of a
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resignation, and the library decided to eliminate the position. Another staff member was terminated, and it was exceedingly difficult and time consuming to get the position refilled. Fortunately we were able to transition our student worker into the position. This allowed us to have two full-time positions within serial acquisitions but resulted in us losing our student hours, a situation we were never able to redress until this year. Since the real growth in electronic resources did not occur until more recently, we were able to maintain our operations reasonably well. As mentioned above, the health sciences and dental libraries employed staff responsible for the tasks of check-in, claiming and binding periodicals. This workflow ended at the health sciences library when that position, funded outside the library budget, was eliminated. After much discussion, it was decided that the health sciences library would continue to check in daily periodicals, but serial acquisitions would manage claiming. Binding would be a joint operation conducted by both health sciences library and serial acquisitions staff. In the fall of 2008, one of my staff members resigned. Shortly thereafter, the University of Missouri system implemented a hiring freeze across all four of its campuses, including UMKC. To date we have been unable to hire into the position. However, we have had a temporary reprieve when the library was awarded additional work-study student hours for the 2009 academic year. The serial acquisitions unit was granted two student positions and quickly filled them. These students are responsible for our daily check-in and binding operations. This opportunity was particularly fortuitous because the library is building an automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS), and all of our bound periodicals will be placed in the ASRS. The students have been instrumental in preparing the physical periodical volumes and issues for the move into the ASRS over the summer of 2010.
periodicals. The result of this is significant reductions in checkin, claiming and binding print periodicals. While we have made great strides in reducing the amount of time we spend with print periodicals, we still have a ways to go. We continue to convert as many periodicals to electronic only as we can. I also believe there are opportunities to further reduce the check-in, claiming and binding of the print periodicals. My hope is that after the dust settles from our ASRS implementation, we can pursue these opportunities.
Rethinking Print Serials Management Kathy Carter The University of Alberta Library serves 37,000 students and 14,500 staff. Like most large academic libraries, it is forging ahead with the shift to online services within constrained budgets. The library now acquires far more serials in digital than in print form, and usage has probably shifted even more towards electronic resources. For technical services, and serials work in particular, this shift has caused considerable rethinking and repositioning of staff members. The attendant decrease in check-in and binding are obvious, but the ripple effects of the online shift reach further into our thinking and operations. In 2003 Rick Anderson opened the eyes of serialists to the fundamental changes possible in serials operations, such as the cessation of check-in, claiming and binding.5 The difficulty of monitoring online subscriptions at the title level, much less the issue level, has also affected our assumptions about monitoring print receipts. Since 2003 discussion of such issues has flared periodically at conferences, in the literature and especially on discussion lists. While the effects of the wholesale shift from print to online subscriptions in academic libraries have been well documented, it is not so clear to what extent those libraries have changed their print serials management practices.6 Online discussion and recent articles reveal differing viewpoints and decisions.7-10 The University of Alberta collections policy for several years has been to acquire only the electronic format if it is an acceptable substitute for the print format. To be acceptable it must be stable, current, and complete. Access in an aggregator database is not considered sufficient. An exception is made for titles published in our geographic region of the Prairie Provinces. The library considers itself a repository for these and acquires them in both formats if available. We review our remaining print subscriptions annually and cancel any for which acceptable online access becomes available. These policies have reduced our print receipts by over two thirds, with about 5,000 subscriptions cancelled solely because of acceptable online availability. Our library currently receives almost 6,000 print subscriptions and a few microforms. Print serials management is still a significant activity and therefore subject to scrutiny of its value, relevance and cost, especially “the opportunity costs—the lost chance to do other things with the time and effort” that Anderson and Zink emphasize.11 In response to strong user preference and expectations for fast online access, our staff must give priority to the services that support that access, such as our link resolver and problem reporting system. Changes have not been a result of dire financial pressures but reflect a desire to keep our limited resources aligned with our highest priority services. The following major changes have occurred:
Our Response In 2008, we hired a new head of collections. One of his early decisions was to implement a collection development policy preferring electronic journals over print journals where feasible. A critical point in the policy was that the library would no longer duplicate online journal content with print content unless deemed necessary (such as when access to the online content would be lost if the library were to cancel that journal subscription). This new policy gave serial acquisitions a mandate to work on converting existing print periodicals to online-only periodicals. To date we have converted nearly six hundred print journals to online-only, thereby significantly reducing the indirect costs associated with check-in, claiming and binding. Another significant change has been the decision to no longer bind any print periodical that is included in JSTOR. We are now simply storing the issues in boxes and then will discard those issues when the volume is available on the JSTOR Web site. Other changes have been smaller, including:
1) Shifting standing orders to the monographic acquisitions unit; 2) Claiming print periodicals every other week instead of weekly; 3) Ceasing the pursuit of a claimed periodical issue after the third unsuccessful claim;
4) Consolidating our periodical subscriptions with a single agent instead of two agents, and
5) Using the Millennium Integrated Library System to provide statistics and eliminating the manual tabulation of our workload statistics.
• We eased turnaround time for check-in. The public service
These changes have resulted in some dramatic reductions in our print periodical workloads. For the fiscal year 2008, we had 3,146 current print periodicals. We are now down to 2,294 print
urgency to make issues immediately available dissipated as online availability grew. Instead of twenty-four hour turnaround,
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•
•
• • •
•
we now give ourselves several days, which allows us to cope with ups and downs in daily receipts and staff absences with a smaller staff complement. We ceased claiming except for patron requests, reference items, microfilm, loose-leaf services, and apparent lapses. Claims are now minimal. Users are directed to interlibrary loan when issues are unavailable for any reason. We ceased binding issues that are sturdy enough to stand on their own. In most cases these issues are checked in, barcoded, processed and added to our holdings at the time of receipt. They no longer need to be pulled later for binding and/or adding. Stopping check-in for these titles is now under consideration. Our binding volume has dropped 87 percent over the past ten years. We stopped adding security strips to the issues we still bind. Security strips are inserted into volumes when they are bound. We bind incomplete volumes. Missing issues are not claimed or back ordered but they are noted in our holdings records. We ceased comprehensive title-level invoice checking in favor of targeted checks of high risk titles. These include our most expensive subscriptions, known problem areas, and recently cancelled subscriptions. To catch lapses, we do an annual check of titles for which no payment has been made by the normal payment date. This catches most subscriptions that have lapsed or failed to be renewed because of an error on our part or that of the publisher or our agent.
issues and options for preservation and how libraries can develop strategies according to their particular environments.15 Claiming can support both access and preservation by reducing holdings gaps. Yet data on the causes, extent and effects of gaps in serials holdings are notably absent in library research. There is likewise a paucity of data about the effectiveness of claiming and its effect on completeness of holdings. Another area in which we have little data is the effect of reduced print claiming on the operations and costs incurred by subscription agents. Just as libraries review their internal processes, we should work with our vendors to identify where their costs (and our service charges) can be reduced, or where services of greater benefit can be developed. It is worth remembering the continuing value we receive from vendor services; it is our confidence in these services that allows libraries to reduce our own monitoring of receipts, payments, online availability and bibliographic changes in serial publications.
Conclusions It is evident from the work of these three authors, that although change rates vary and strategies are often situational and library dependent, several common themes, trends and approaches have developed in academic research libraries. The need to continually change appears to be universally recognized, and it is clear that the libraries discussed have taken a thoughtful approach to change. Many major changes have been evolutionary in nature although considerable proactive change has also occurred. There has not been a wholesale abandonment of check-in, claiming, binding and other traditional serials activities in order to embrace tasks necessitated by the move to electronic collections, or as a result of budget, staffing or other pressing issues. Changes have been made with the goal of best meeting the needs of patrons and new priorities. The idea of centralizing tasks like serials receipt that were once de-centralized is gaining popularity. In all the library situations presented, flexibility appears to be one of the most important requirements for staff positions, department functions, workflows and general weathering whatever challenges present themselves. The willingness and abilities to continually evolve and to proactively change are viewed to be crucial to the current and future realities of the libraries.
None of the changes has had a noticeable impact on public services or financial requirements. Because each of our staff members has a variety of duties, it is difficult to track the staffing effects of these changes or to separate them from the effects of reduced receipts. However, our combined staffing requirement for print serials receiving, record maintenance, and bindery preparation dropped dramatically over the past decade from approximately eleven to four FTE staff.12
Questions and Considerations As libraries continue to assess print serials management practices, there are many considerations and questions to ask ourselves in the context of our own institutions. In what ways are processes such as check-in, claiming and binding interdependent, and what other internal processes and public services are dependent upon them? Carol Ann Borchert's description of the University of South Florida Tampa Library's experience in ceasing check-in for a trial period identifies many issues and demonstrates the importance of accommodating them.13 Borchert noted that “public services staff must fully support the idea, not just in concept, but in a cooperative way” and “check-in processes are significantly impacted by collection management policies.”14 There is a danger that processes discontinued at one point in a workflow may be perceived as essential at another and therefore be recreated there. Has the institution made any commitments to long-term preservation, and, if so, have sufficient provisions been made to meet them? Providing preservation is very different from providing immediate access. Preservation presents different policy issues and may result in some different decisions regarding serials management practices. For example, quick access to articles in missing issues may be supplied by interlibrary loan, document delivery or pay per view services, or even an email to the author. Preservation, on the other hand, demands possession of complete holdings and protecting them through various means, such as binding, microfilming, digitization, and secure storage. In “Serials Preservation at a Crossroads,” Elizabeth Bogdanski outlines the
Notes
165
1.
ALCTS Technical Services Managers in Academic Libraries Interest Group e-forum, “Shifting Technical Services Priorities to Meet Evolving Needs of the Institution,” January 26-28, 2010, http://connect.ala.org/node/66147 (accessed May 1, 2010).
2.
SERIALST Archives, January 2010, http://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa? A1=ind1001&L=Serialst (accessed May 1, 2010).
3.
University of California, Davis, “UC Davis Facts: UC Davis Distinctions,” UC Davis News and Information, http://facts.ucdavis.edu/distinctions.lasso (accessed April 15, 2010).
4.
University of California Libraries, “Next-Generation Technical Services (NGTS),” http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/about/uls/ngts/ (accessed April 15, 2010).
5.
Rick Anderson and Steven D. Zink, “Implementing the Unthinkable: The Demise of Periodical Check-in at the University of Nevada," Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 27 (2003): 61–71.
6.
Chandra Prabha, “Shifting from Print to Electronic Journals in ARL University Libraries," Serials Review 33 (2007): 4–13.
7.
Markel Tumlin, “Is Check-in Checking Out?," Serials Review 29 (2003): 224–229.
Dyas-Correia / Serials Review 36 (2010) 161–166
8. Rajia C. Tobia and Susan C. Hunnicutt, “Print Journals in the Electronic Library: What Is Happening to Them?," Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries 5 (2008): 161–170. 9. Karen Decker, Micheline Westfall and Gracemary Smulewitz, “To Claim or Not to Claim: Claiming Questions in the E-world,” Serials Librarian 56 (2009): 122–128. 10.
Postings in January 2010 on SERIALST and the ALCTS-eforum addressed check-in, claiming and binding.
11.
Anderson, “Implementing the Unthinkable,”: 67.
166
12.
Some receiving for government publications and some bindery preparation is done in branch libraries; this work is not included in the figures.
13.
Carol Ann Borchert, “To Check In or Not to Check In? That Is the Question!" Serials Review 33 (2007): 238–243.
14.
Borchert, “To Check In or Not to Check In? That Is the Question!” 242.
15.
Elizabeth L. Bogdanski, “Serials Preservation at a Crossroads," Serials Review 32 (2006): 70–72.
Introduction
whatever challenges lie ahead. Buddy Pennington (electronic resources and serials librarian, University of Missouri-Kansas City) focuses on how the libraries he works for are navigating the transition from print to electronic serials, making changes and adjusting workflows and tasks accordingly. Kathy Carter (projects librarian, Bibliographic and Information Technology Services, University of Alberta) offers a view of a library system that is well on the way to transforming itself into a digital library and discusses many of the changes that have occurred along the way. She presents several questions for future research and consideration.
In January 2010 a series of fascinating and almost heated exchanges occurred on the SERIALST electronic discussion list and the ALCTS e-forum.1,2 The discussions centered on issues related to the ongoing and familiar debates of whether or not to check in, claim and bind, and were imbedded in larger conversations of the ways serialists are adjusting work to meet financial constraints and new priorities. It was evident from the amount and level of participation in the discussions that these topics are still controversial, extremely important and relevant to serialists. Several librarians from libraries of varying sizes and types, who participated in the discussions, were invited to contribute to “The Balance Point” in order to create a snapshot of the current state of ideas and activities related to check-in, claiming, binding, and otherwise adjusting to the current economic order. Contributors were asked to discuss current activities in the libraries they describe and to address the reasoning behind changes to cope with existing realities. The column editor suggested to authors that commentary on progress, next steps and the benefits or drawbacks envisioned for the current path of the library they represent would be of interest to readers. Lisa Spagnolo (acquisitions librarian, University of California Davis, Shields Library) describes the evolution to the current serials scenario at the University of California Davis. She presents a hopeful view of the future for the library system she describes and offers a snapshot of a library that is ready, or almost ready, to tackle
Adjusting Serials Operations in a Time of Uncertainty Lisa Spagnolo We are hit with news of budget reductions in libraries at every turn: branch closures, collection reductions, curtailed service hours. In technical services operations we have faced hiring freezes, if not layoffs, and are far beyond the concept of trying to do more with less. We are either doing less with less or fundamentally changing how we do things—often both. What follows is an overview of our environment at the University of California, Davis, a description of our serials staffing and operations, and the trajectory that our services have taken in response to the challenges that have come our way in the recent years and for which we continue to plan going forward, not without some trepidation about the uncertain future.
Our Institution and Library Environment
Spagnolo is Acquisitions Librarian, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA; e-mail: [email protected]. Pennington is Electronic Resources and Serials Librarian, University Libraries, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, USA; e-mail: [email protected]. Carter is Projects Librarian, Bibliographic and Information Technology Services, Cameron Library, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB T6G 2J8, Canada; e-mail: kathy. [email protected]. Dyas-Correia is Head of Serials, University Libraries, University of Toronto, Toronto ON M5S 1A5, Canada; e-mail: [email protected].
The University of California, Davis, sits within the ten-campus system of the University of California and serves over 31,000 students. As a large land-grant research university with a medical school, we support patient care, teaching and advanced research in all subject areas, with notable strengths in energy resources, agriculture, veterinary medicine, and Native American studies.3
0098-7913/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.serrev.2010.05.011
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We are home to a premier, world-class program in viticulture and enology, with strong ties to the California wine industry. The general library includes the Shields main library and three branch libraries: Physical Sciences and Engineering, Carlson Health Sciences, and the Blaisdell Medical Center Library, which is located about twenty miles away in Sacramento. A large percentage of our electronic resources (approximately 90 percent of journal titles) are negotiated and managed centrally through the California Digital Library. We participate in a distributed process to manage these resources and also manage electronic resources that are acquired locally for our campus outside of the consortia process (fewer than one hundred titles). We also process over 3000 print serials titles centrally for our main library and the branches. The serials acquisitions unit is located within a functionally based department of Collection Support Services (acquisitions units; maintenance and relocation; and preservation, conservation and binding), and includes five full-time equivalent (FTE) staff: one unit supervisor, one ordering and invoicing lead and three receiving assistants who perform check-in, claiming and subscription maintenance. Management of our electronic resources is networked across several departments. Two librarian positions support license coordination, access and activation, and cataloging, including management of record loads from our Shared Cataloging Program, which supports the UC system.
Further downstream, our binding operations have been grappling with significant reductions that have led to coordinated discussions across technical and public services to evaluate what material (both serials and monographs) can stand up in the stacks with minimal binding treatment. Decision-making is based as much as possible on physical criteria and anticipated use rather than past practice and tradition. We are adjusting our binding budget directly to local needs through conscious control rather than automatically applying binding treatments across categories of material. Occasional stacks reviews initiated by the maintenance unit and coordinated with the serials acquisitions unit have been very beneficial for controlling our most heavily used research journals. One significant review of our viticulture and enology collection not only identified titles that had ceased, but also surfaced journals that it would be better to order through a different vendor than the one currently used. This project was deemed a very valuable use of time and effort given that faculty working in this subject area are intensive and interactive users of the library, and this collection includes domestic and foreign titles not always represented by an electronic counterpart. Furthermore, the collection's visibility and the percentage of unique material justify a high level of management and control.
Responding to Organizational Change The technical services division has undergone a substantial amount of organizational change over the past several years, requiring all units, including the serials unit, to reassess tasks, reassign staff, and examine workflows. The serials unit absorbed the workload of the separate health sciences technical services unit in 2007 following a series of retirements in that branch. A small number of titles were transferred from the branch, and they were fairly easily absorbed by the serials unit. The staff and clientele of the Health Sciences Library were accustomed to hands-on service, however, so the idea of centralization of processing and its separation from the public service point required a period of adjustment. In 2008 a more comprehensive reorganization of technical services, which transformed monograph and serials operations from format-based into functional-based orientations, also incorporated a separate operation for the processing of government documents. Despite the increased workload and learning curve with respect to the government documents receiving routines, the serials unit was able to take advantage of flexible staffing with the new proximities brought by the reorganization. One staff person in monographs acquisitions was cross-trained in serials during a time when her monographs workload was waning. This assignment has provided us with an ability to maneuver in response to fluctuating needs and different cycles between monographs and serials.
Current Serials Activities Like many libraries, we have responded to the predominance of the electronic journal format with a corresponding reduction in our print subscriptions. As archives of journal content have developed and become relatively more stable, confidence has increased in dropping our duplicate print subscriptions and, where possible, unbundling print charges from electronic subscriptions. There has been cost savings resulting from this approach. More recently we have been identifying standalone print subscriptions to cancel for various reasons, including lack of use, changing collection needs and price. Titles acquired through our exchange program, which has been deemed too time-consuming to maintain in this climate, are included. Correspondence with exchange partners is on an as-needed basis, usually to terminate the exchange. Occasionally a title on exchange is converted to a paid subscription. Currently we are still maintaining serials check-in but at a reduced volume as a result of cancellations. Since we are centrally managing subscriptions for periodicals locations in a few branches, check-in is a natural extension of verifying the destination of a particular issue. Following a period of not claiming after a systems migration to a new integrated library system, we have structured and focused our claiming efforts in such a way as to be manageable and purposeful. We do not send automated claims from our system but have identified two opportunities in the workflow for claiming: at the time of invoice processing and at the time of check-in. During our invoice review, the ordering and invoice assistant will verify that issues have been coming before forwarding the invoice to accounting for payment. This procedure allows for rectification of any chronic non-delivery issues and presents an opportunity to consider moving titles from one subscription agent to another or from an agent to a direct order. We will also claim at the time of check-in if there are any missing issues of titles with monthly frequencies or longer. The claim file may be turned to during work lulls and usually claiming is focused narrowly (e.g., by vendor, housing location, etc.). Our overall claiming efforts add up to less than 5 percent of our total annual check-in volume.
Looking Ahead For the most part, we have been able to continue traditional tasks and balance our investment in the management of both print and electronic resources. We have been able to absorb the workloads of additional units in our most recent reorganizations and still withstand staffing reductions as a result of attrition. Two and three quarters FTE staff in the serials acquisitions unit alone have been replaced by cross-training staff from other units and modifying processes. We are ready to head into transformative territory, to consider what tasks we could be doing if we made a decision to rebalance our management of the print workflow, still a significant footprint throughout technical services. This may lead us to reassess traditional activities such as check-in and claiming, although we would likely continue these tasks in subject areas
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that are unique to University of California, Davis. Additional budget reductions, which are probable for the next fiscal year, might also force our hand to come up with creative staffing solutions in all areas of the library. Our electronic resources workflow, while working well because of our consortia and distributed model, would benefit from a more in-depth analysis to determine opportunities to transition print-based staff to new tasks. Looking beyond our campus, system-wide initiatives to coordinate technical services activities across campuses are getting underway with a view to reduce unintended duplication, maximize breadth in collections and leverage our staffing expertise in creative ways to meet the challenges ahead. The Next Generation Technical Services initiative seeks to extend our existing cooperative endeavors and re-envision our local efforts so that we operate more and more as a single enterprise providing services across the system.4 As we evaluate our print serials operations in this context, we may find that shifting this stream to the network level results in some degree of consolidation of checkin activities across campuses. Numerous issues that are outside the bounds of this article arise from these very early discussions. Many of the issues are tied to determining the best way to effectively deliver this format to patrons who are distributed geographically. At Davis we have not yet developed the synergistic workflows between serials acquisitions and interlibrary loan that would be required to support such a service on a larger scale. Overall, our trajectory of change has been opportunistic and incremental, both proactive and reactive. We have adjusted our serials workflows in the context of a multitude of factors, not only resulting from workflow analysis but also responding to organizational changes. While we continue to refine our serials activities within the acquisitions unit, we are also planning in a coordinated way with the rest of technical services and the library. As our system-wide discussions about the future of technical services develop from the conceptual stage to active planning and implementation, we are thinking about the resources and expertise we have within our units on a different scale. It is our hope that this fundamental shift in the work helps us to weather the difficult budgetary climate at the same time we are able to support the activities of our users. If we are not completely ready for the next challenge around the corner, we will be close.
functions of ordering and receiving periodicals and other subscription-based materials in all formats. It is also responsible for binding operations. Because the unit is responsible for subscription-based materials, it has grown to include the ordering and implementation of electronic resources as well as the management of related tools, such as an online journals portal, an OpenURL link resolver, and an electronic resource management (ERM) product. The serial acquisitions unit is also responsible for the access management of these electronic resources, working with vendors to troubleshoot issues with electronic resources, and collecting and compiling usage statistics to support collections decisions.
Our Growth in Electronic Resources Like most academic libraries, the University Libraries has experienced tremendous growth in electronic resources over the past several years. Since 2003 the number of online journals we provide access to has tripled from around 20,000 to over 60,000 unique titles. We now provide access to over three hundred databases and online journal and book collections. We have also recently begun to acquire online books in large numbers and provide access to nearly 200,000 unique online book titles. This dramatic growth occurred for a number of reasons. Since 2003, we have embarked on three “Big Deal” contracts, including Elsevier ScienceDirect, Wiley InterScience, and SpringerLink. These contracts added thousands of new online journal titles to our collection. We have also been the beneficiary of a significant budgetary increase from the university Office of the Provost. For the past two fiscal years, the bulk of the increase has been applied to purchasing new electronic resources. While we had a few NetLibrary collections and purchased the occasional online book, it was not until 2009 that we decided to get into the online book business by subscribing to collections, such as ebrary and Safari Tech Books. This new area of emphasis resulted in access to tens of thousands of new online books titles but also prompted us to evaluate how we provide access to and manage such large numbers of individual titles. A discussion on the growth of electronic resources in our library would not be complete without including the point that new tools were also acquired to manage these resources, and these new tools themselves required additional staff time and effort to maintain. In 2003, the library began using Serials Solutions to provide access to online journals. At that time, the cataloging units manually added and maintained MARC records for select online journals. As we increased the number of online journals we provided access to, the decision was made to end traditional cataloging for this class of materials and to rely on Serials Solutions to provide us with MARC records through monthly MARC updates to the library catalog. This service was deemed a success, and the decision was made in the summer of 2009 to expand it to include MARC records for online books as well. During this time we also implemented the Serials Solutions OpenURL link resolver, the Innovative Millennium ERM, and the Summon discovery tool (also from Serials Solutions). In all three cases, the serial acquisitions unit was and continues to be involved in the management of these tools.
Navigating the Serial and Electronic Resources Crossroads at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Buddy Pennington An Introduction to the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) UMKC is a medium-sized research university serving just over 14,000 students. The university has four libraries. Three of them are grouped into the University Libraries unit and include the Miller Nichols Library, the Health Sciences Library and the Dental Library. The university also has a law library that is included in the School of Law. The University Libraries has a centralized Technical Services Division that includes the traditional acquisitions and cataloging functions. Some of those functions related to periodicals, such as daily periodical check-in, are handled by staff at the health sciences and dental libraries. The Technical Services Division is divided into two acquisitions units, one for serials and one for monographs, and four cataloging divisions. The serial acquisitions unit is responsible for the traditional
Our Lack of Staffing While most academic libraries have seen growth in their electronic resources collections, the inverse has generally been true in terms of staffing. Generally, libraries have seen staffing maintained at existing levels or even reduced. Our experience has been the latter. In 2003 the serial acquisitions unit was composed of one librarian and three full-time staff positions. A student was shared between the serial and monographic acquisitions units. Toward the end of 2003, the serial acquisitions unit lost a staff member as a result of a
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resignation, and the library decided to eliminate the position. Another staff member was terminated, and it was exceedingly difficult and time consuming to get the position refilled. Fortunately we were able to transition our student worker into the position. This allowed us to have two full-time positions within serial acquisitions but resulted in us losing our student hours, a situation we were never able to redress until this year. Since the real growth in electronic resources did not occur until more recently, we were able to maintain our operations reasonably well. As mentioned above, the health sciences and dental libraries employed staff responsible for the tasks of check-in, claiming and binding periodicals. This workflow ended at the health sciences library when that position, funded outside the library budget, was eliminated. After much discussion, it was decided that the health sciences library would continue to check in daily periodicals, but serial acquisitions would manage claiming. Binding would be a joint operation conducted by both health sciences library and serial acquisitions staff. In the fall of 2008, one of my staff members resigned. Shortly thereafter, the University of Missouri system implemented a hiring freeze across all four of its campuses, including UMKC. To date we have been unable to hire into the position. However, we have had a temporary reprieve when the library was awarded additional work-study student hours for the 2009 academic year. The serial acquisitions unit was granted two student positions and quickly filled them. These students are responsible for our daily check-in and binding operations. This opportunity was particularly fortuitous because the library is building an automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS), and all of our bound periodicals will be placed in the ASRS. The students have been instrumental in preparing the physical periodical volumes and issues for the move into the ASRS over the summer of 2010.
periodicals. The result of this is significant reductions in checkin, claiming and binding print periodicals. While we have made great strides in reducing the amount of time we spend with print periodicals, we still have a ways to go. We continue to convert as many periodicals to electronic only as we can. I also believe there are opportunities to further reduce the check-in, claiming and binding of the print periodicals. My hope is that after the dust settles from our ASRS implementation, we can pursue these opportunities.
Rethinking Print Serials Management Kathy Carter The University of Alberta Library serves 37,000 students and 14,500 staff. Like most large academic libraries, it is forging ahead with the shift to online services within constrained budgets. The library now acquires far more serials in digital than in print form, and usage has probably shifted even more towards electronic resources. For technical services, and serials work in particular, this shift has caused considerable rethinking and repositioning of staff members. The attendant decrease in check-in and binding are obvious, but the ripple effects of the online shift reach further into our thinking and operations. In 2003 Rick Anderson opened the eyes of serialists to the fundamental changes possible in serials operations, such as the cessation of check-in, claiming and binding.5 The difficulty of monitoring online subscriptions at the title level, much less the issue level, has also affected our assumptions about monitoring print receipts. Since 2003 discussion of such issues has flared periodically at conferences, in the literature and especially on discussion lists. While the effects of the wholesale shift from print to online subscriptions in academic libraries have been well documented, it is not so clear to what extent those libraries have changed their print serials management practices.6 Online discussion and recent articles reveal differing viewpoints and decisions.7-10 The University of Alberta collections policy for several years has been to acquire only the electronic format if it is an acceptable substitute for the print format. To be acceptable it must be stable, current, and complete. Access in an aggregator database is not considered sufficient. An exception is made for titles published in our geographic region of the Prairie Provinces. The library considers itself a repository for these and acquires them in both formats if available. We review our remaining print subscriptions annually and cancel any for which acceptable online access becomes available. These policies have reduced our print receipts by over two thirds, with about 5,000 subscriptions cancelled solely because of acceptable online availability. Our library currently receives almost 6,000 print subscriptions and a few microforms. Print serials management is still a significant activity and therefore subject to scrutiny of its value, relevance and cost, especially “the opportunity costs—the lost chance to do other things with the time and effort” that Anderson and Zink emphasize.11 In response to strong user preference and expectations for fast online access, our staff must give priority to the services that support that access, such as our link resolver and problem reporting system. Changes have not been a result of dire financial pressures but reflect a desire to keep our limited resources aligned with our highest priority services. The following major changes have occurred:
Our Response In 2008, we hired a new head of collections. One of his early decisions was to implement a collection development policy preferring electronic journals over print journals where feasible. A critical point in the policy was that the library would no longer duplicate online journal content with print content unless deemed necessary (such as when access to the online content would be lost if the library were to cancel that journal subscription). This new policy gave serial acquisitions a mandate to work on converting existing print periodicals to online-only periodicals. To date we have converted nearly six hundred print journals to online-only, thereby significantly reducing the indirect costs associated with check-in, claiming and binding. Another significant change has been the decision to no longer bind any print periodical that is included in JSTOR. We are now simply storing the issues in boxes and then will discard those issues when the volume is available on the JSTOR Web site. Other changes have been smaller, including:
1) Shifting standing orders to the monographic acquisitions unit; 2) Claiming print periodicals every other week instead of weekly; 3) Ceasing the pursuit of a claimed periodical issue after the third unsuccessful claim;
4) Consolidating our periodical subscriptions with a single agent instead of two agents, and
5) Using the Millennium Integrated Library System to provide statistics and eliminating the manual tabulation of our workload statistics.
• We eased turnaround time for check-in. The public service
These changes have resulted in some dramatic reductions in our print periodical workloads. For the fiscal year 2008, we had 3,146 current print periodicals. We are now down to 2,294 print
urgency to make issues immediately available dissipated as online availability grew. Instead of twenty-four hour turnaround,
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•
•
• • •
•
we now give ourselves several days, which allows us to cope with ups and downs in daily receipts and staff absences with a smaller staff complement. We ceased claiming except for patron requests, reference items, microfilm, loose-leaf services, and apparent lapses. Claims are now minimal. Users are directed to interlibrary loan when issues are unavailable for any reason. We ceased binding issues that are sturdy enough to stand on their own. In most cases these issues are checked in, barcoded, processed and added to our holdings at the time of receipt. They no longer need to be pulled later for binding and/or adding. Stopping check-in for these titles is now under consideration. Our binding volume has dropped 87 percent over the past ten years. We stopped adding security strips to the issues we still bind. Security strips are inserted into volumes when they are bound. We bind incomplete volumes. Missing issues are not claimed or back ordered but they are noted in our holdings records. We ceased comprehensive title-level invoice checking in favor of targeted checks of high risk titles. These include our most expensive subscriptions, known problem areas, and recently cancelled subscriptions. To catch lapses, we do an annual check of titles for which no payment has been made by the normal payment date. This catches most subscriptions that have lapsed or failed to be renewed because of an error on our part or that of the publisher or our agent.
issues and options for preservation and how libraries can develop strategies according to their particular environments.15 Claiming can support both access and preservation by reducing holdings gaps. Yet data on the causes, extent and effects of gaps in serials holdings are notably absent in library research. There is likewise a paucity of data about the effectiveness of claiming and its effect on completeness of holdings. Another area in which we have little data is the effect of reduced print claiming on the operations and costs incurred by subscription agents. Just as libraries review their internal processes, we should work with our vendors to identify where their costs (and our service charges) can be reduced, or where services of greater benefit can be developed. It is worth remembering the continuing value we receive from vendor services; it is our confidence in these services that allows libraries to reduce our own monitoring of receipts, payments, online availability and bibliographic changes in serial publications.
Conclusions It is evident from the work of these three authors, that although change rates vary and strategies are often situational and library dependent, several common themes, trends and approaches have developed in academic research libraries. The need to continually change appears to be universally recognized, and it is clear that the libraries discussed have taken a thoughtful approach to change. Many major changes have been evolutionary in nature although considerable proactive change has also occurred. There has not been a wholesale abandonment of check-in, claiming, binding and other traditional serials activities in order to embrace tasks necessitated by the move to electronic collections, or as a result of budget, staffing or other pressing issues. Changes have been made with the goal of best meeting the needs of patrons and new priorities. The idea of centralizing tasks like serials receipt that were once de-centralized is gaining popularity. In all the library situations presented, flexibility appears to be one of the most important requirements for staff positions, department functions, workflows and general weathering whatever challenges present themselves. The willingness and abilities to continually evolve and to proactively change are viewed to be crucial to the current and future realities of the libraries.
None of the changes has had a noticeable impact on public services or financial requirements. Because each of our staff members has a variety of duties, it is difficult to track the staffing effects of these changes or to separate them from the effects of reduced receipts. However, our combined staffing requirement for print serials receiving, record maintenance, and bindery preparation dropped dramatically over the past decade from approximately eleven to four FTE staff.12
Questions and Considerations As libraries continue to assess print serials management practices, there are many considerations and questions to ask ourselves in the context of our own institutions. In what ways are processes such as check-in, claiming and binding interdependent, and what other internal processes and public services are dependent upon them? Carol Ann Borchert's description of the University of South Florida Tampa Library's experience in ceasing check-in for a trial period identifies many issues and demonstrates the importance of accommodating them.13 Borchert noted that “public services staff must fully support the idea, not just in concept, but in a cooperative way” and “check-in processes are significantly impacted by collection management policies.”14 There is a danger that processes discontinued at one point in a workflow may be perceived as essential at another and therefore be recreated there. Has the institution made any commitments to long-term preservation, and, if so, have sufficient provisions been made to meet them? Providing preservation is very different from providing immediate access. Preservation presents different policy issues and may result in some different decisions regarding serials management practices. For example, quick access to articles in missing issues may be supplied by interlibrary loan, document delivery or pay per view services, or even an email to the author. Preservation, on the other hand, demands possession of complete holdings and protecting them through various means, such as binding, microfilming, digitization, and secure storage. In “Serials Preservation at a Crossroads,” Elizabeth Bogdanski outlines the
Notes
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1.
ALCTS Technical Services Managers in Academic Libraries Interest Group e-forum, “Shifting Technical Services Priorities to Meet Evolving Needs of the Institution,” January 26-28, 2010, http://connect.ala.org/node/66147 (accessed May 1, 2010).
2.
SERIALST Archives, January 2010, http://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa? A1=ind1001&L=Serialst (accessed May 1, 2010).
3.
University of California, Davis, “UC Davis Facts: UC Davis Distinctions,” UC Davis News and Information, http://facts.ucdavis.edu/distinctions.lasso (accessed April 15, 2010).
4.
University of California Libraries, “Next-Generation Technical Services (NGTS),” http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/about/uls/ngts/ (accessed April 15, 2010).
5.
Rick Anderson and Steven D. Zink, “Implementing the Unthinkable: The Demise of Periodical Check-in at the University of Nevada," Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 27 (2003): 61–71.
6.
Chandra Prabha, “Shifting from Print to Electronic Journals in ARL University Libraries," Serials Review 33 (2007): 4–13.
7.
Markel Tumlin, “Is Check-in Checking Out?," Serials Review 29 (2003): 224–229.
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8. Rajia C. Tobia and Susan C. Hunnicutt, “Print Journals in the Electronic Library: What Is Happening to Them?," Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries 5 (2008): 161–170. 9. Karen Decker, Micheline Westfall and Gracemary Smulewitz, “To Claim or Not to Claim: Claiming Questions in the E-world,” Serials Librarian 56 (2009): 122–128. 10.
Postings in January 2010 on SERIALST and the ALCTS-eforum addressed check-in, claiming and binding.
11.
Anderson, “Implementing the Unthinkable,”: 67.
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12.
Some receiving for government publications and some bindery preparation is done in branch libraries; this work is not included in the figures.
13.
Carol Ann Borchert, “To Check In or Not to Check In? That Is the Question!" Serials Review 33 (2007): 238–243.
14.
Borchert, “To Check In or Not to Check In? That Is the Question!” 242.
15.
Elizabeth L. Bogdanski, “Serials Preservation at a Crossroads," Serials Review 32 (2006): 70–72.