http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1548 Allerton Park Institute Proceedings (no. 16, 1969); Edited by Walter C. Allen http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1578 Service Kuhn, Warren B. In ancient Greece King Augeas was the ruler of Elis who had difficulties with his housekeeping. By skillful attention to an acquisition program with his bulls zestfully engaged in their own activities, he had managed to accumulate immense herds, but somehow never got around to cleaning his stables. By the time Hercules was given the task of policing the area, the Augean establishment was overflowing with thirty years of deposit collections. Good King Augeas and his stables kept returning to mind as I considered my topic for this paper: the problems of arranging and servicing a large serial collection. Even more than other aspects of libraries, the serial and periodical collections present a vast and seemingly immmovable presence. Once processed, our busy attention to them, like that of Augeas, has often been diverted elsewhere. Unfortunately, while Hercules had the River Alpheus to help him cleanse the stables, our torrent of proliferating periodicals and serials pours in at a new flood level each year and never runs out again! Being no Hercules, I have concentrated on only a few considerations of serial service in our Augean establishments that seem to me to warrant special attention. First, let me try to assuage the feelings of those who have already reacted to my implication that librarians have not been handling periodicals as well as they might. I have no doubt librarians' hearts are Herculean in the desire to be of service, but their attempts have, as yet, not been overly effective. I say as yet because there are current developments which promise help, some of which librarians have initiated, and many of which they must begin to more actively investigate and try. Serials control systems Wed, 01 Jan 1969 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1577 Bibliographic Control of Serial Publications Woods, Bill M. An important problem with serials is bibliographic control. What good does it do for libraries to select, acquire, record, catalog, and bind large holdings of serial publications if the contents of those serials remain a mystery to all except the few who have the opportunity to examine selected journals of continuing personal interest and have discovered some magic way of retaining the gist of the contents? Bibliographic control is the indexing and abstracting of the contents or guts of what is included in the serials. It is this control, provided by secondary publishing services, which this article will discuss. Just as there are problems with serials in general, there are some easily identifiable problems connected with their bibliographic control including: volume, overlap, costs, elements and methods, and a few other miscellaneous considerations. Some history of bibliographic control will also put the current problems in a helpful perspective. Hereafter "bibliographic control" will be designated by the term "abstracting and indexing," one of these alone, or the shorter "a & i." (I do distinguish between abstracting and indexing and believe that they are not in order of importance and difficulty.) Although a & i do provide bibliographic control, this paper will not discuss cataloging, tables of contents, back-of-the-book indexes, year-end indexes, cumulative indexes, lists of advertisers, or bibliographies. If there is to be control, there must always be indexing. Abstracting is a short cut, a convenience, and perhaps a bibliographic luxury which may be now, or is fast becoming, too rich, in light of other factors to be discussed, for library blood and for the users of libraries especially for the users of indexes who may not depend upon the library interface. Abstracting, though, provides a desirable control, and one which will continue to be advocated. Serials control systems Wed, 01 Jan 1969 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1576 Document Serials, Technical Reports, and The National Bibliography Gillies, Thomas D. Bibliographically, document serials, do not differ substantially from other serials. Their acquisition is largely dependent upon the use of enumerative bibliographies which identify them; their use, upon the subject bibliographies which give some measure of control over their contents. Based on local requirements, every library has its own problems to consider storage, convenient availability, paper quality but bibliographic access is the common need that they all share. If libraries are willing to accept Osborn's definition that "on practical grounds a serial can be defined as any item which lends itself to serial treatment in a library," 1 then a great bulk of government document publication falls into the province of this conference. One reasonable estimate, based on a university library's receipts of documents, is that "80 percent of the material published by the United States government is serial in nature."2 It is safe to assume that a comparable percentage pertains in most large libraries for state and foreign government acquisition. While today there are many bibliographic aids for serials and for documents that were not available a few years ago, the acquisition librarian's and the serial records librarian's approach to document serials whether for serial titles or for individual issues is often far from direct or automatic. Librarians are fortunate to have New Serial Titles from 1950, which gives far better coverage of state, federal, and foreign documents than the Union List Serials did, but as with any cooperative compilation, librarians must be grateful for what they find, and philosophic about what they do not find. Serials control systems Wed, 01 Jan 1969 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1575 Serial Publications In Large Libraries: Machine Applications Hammer, Donald P. While many areas of library operations can be improved or even radically transformed by automation, the one area that probably stands to gain most, and needs the most help, is serials. It has been well known for ages that the irregularity and inconsistencies of serials can unhinge any librarian, but a new revelation of the automation age is the unhinged computer programmer. It is unfortunate that the irrationality of publishers of serials requires the best efforts of the librarian, the programmer, and the computer to bring some semblance of order to the publishers' bibliographical world. Since we cannot, however, unscramble the publishers, we will have to sacrifice librarians and programmers. There is not much that the librarian can do about erratically published journals, arbitrarily combined issues, whimsically numbered issues, or capricious title changes. Unfortunately, the computer cannot do much about these things either, but it can keep track of them and maintain order with a little less chaos than the humans have done. Perhaps someday all of the publishers will automate their processes, and then the millennium will have arrived at least for computer manufacturers. In the meantime, librarians and computer programmers working and communing in the joys of togetherness can do much to develop and to maintain a serials world slightly short of the millennium. Serials control systems Wed, 01 Jan 1969 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1574 Serial Records: A Mechanism for Control Lazerow, Samuel Consideration of serials has, to some extent, been pushed aside, allegedly temporarily, as we have struggled for solutions to many other complex library problems. The sheer volume of serial holdings in large research libraries and the enormous resources required to gain control over them have caused administrators to face what sometimes must seem like an intolerable dilemma. They see the need for relieving a deteriorating situation, but they are understandably reluctant to pour funds into what many of them view as a bottomless pit. At the same time the astronomic rise in the quantity of serial literature in recent years cannot be ignored. Today the reputation of a research library depends on its total holdings, and serials represent a very sizable portion of a research collection. Some major libraries estimate that as much as three-fourths of their holdings are serials, and it has been indicated that in science and technology alone more than 50,000 serials are published currently. 1 It has always seemed something of a paradox to me that concentrated attention to problems of serials controls has been so long delayed at a time in our history when the scientists who are so dependent on them are more and more active. Librarians have been quick to institute acquisitions arrangements that would insure collection of the scientific and technical publications for which the scientists have clamored. Yet one of the greatest disenchantments of the scientific researcher for a very long time has been the lack of adequate control over serial publications. He has not been timid either about expressing his unhappiness as he has repeatedly asked why librarians have not been more concerned about providing easier access to journals and their contents. Serials, therefore, are very much with us and the problems of their control are not going to vanish. Serials control systems Wed, 01 Jan 1969 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1573 Binding: A Librarian's View Henderson, William T. There are two valid reasons for binding serials: preservation and convenience. Other reasons may be given or may be apparent at times, such as the prestige derived from a complete bound run of a particular title, or inertia which allows continued binding of unneeded materials rather than weeding out copies and titles no longer within the scope of a .collection. In most of the larger libraries there probably are examples of binding for both of these reasons, and others also; but, for the most part, the majority of our serials are working stock, not show stock, and they must earn their care and space. Most of what is bound is done so in order to preserve it for future use and to make it more convenient for present use. By preservation I really mean two things; and, although I was taught that one should not use a word in its own definition, I really must use the word preservation again in defining it here. We must simultaneously preserve materials on two levels or fronts. On the one hand I mean preservation in the sense of keeping or saving from harm, but in its second and more specific meaning, I would like to link preservation to the word permanent as it is used by the paper chemists and book conservators. Permanent paper is paper which is so chemically constituted that it will retain the major part of its original strength and other attributes over a long period of time 300 years or more. Papers with this capability are made of well-purified cellulose fibers held in a solution which is nearly neutral or slightly alkaline, which tests very near a pH of 7 on the chemists' scale for measuring acidity or alkalinity. Paper of this kind will last a long time, especially when it contains small amounts of a mild alkaline compound which will buffer acid compounds deriving from the atmosphere, ink or other sources. Materials printed on such papers must be bound to take advantage of this. Serials control systems Wed, 01 Jan 1969 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1572 Library Binding Orr, James In analyzing and evaluating binding methods today, as well as projecting and forcasting for the future, let us first focus our attention on some of the significant changes and developments taking place in the industry. Within the last decade, mechanization and technological advancements have made impressive gains in updating library binding. All indications are that this is just the beginning, and that we are moving into an era of accelerated automation and development. Prior to this time, of course, steady progress was realized in binding technology, but it was in far more moderate degrees than what is being experienced now. The sewing machine formerly constituted one of the main mechanized functions, and could probably be considered the most sophisticated operation in the over-all binding process. Other essential but less complex machinery consisted of stamping and type setting equipment, cutting machines, semi-automatic rounding and backing equipment and book presses. These devices usually encompassed the full spectrum in a modern library binding operation. Serials control systems Wed, 01 Jan 1969 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1571 Serial Cataloging Revisited: A Long Search for a Little Theory and a Lot of Cooperation Henderson, Kathryn Luther The charge to each person preparing a paper for this conference was that he approach current trends and problems and suggest possible solutions to the problems for the specific area of serials that he was to cover. This sounds deceptively simple in relation to serial cataloging, for indeed one can easily identify problems. But it quickly becomes evident that it is increasingly difficult to maintain a linear, "serial" approach to identifying such problems because while serial cataloging has problems of its own, it is always still involved with cataloging in general; with past, present, and future interpretations of the catalog; and with other bibliographical tools, both in and out of the local library. Therefore, while the catalog has its own functions to perform, it cannot escape still carrying on for the other tools should they fail to provide for local needs. And of course, today both problems and trends in all phases of librarianship are somewhat uncertainly noted because of the potential of automation in libraries. The flood of materials of serial nature has created problems for both librarians and users of libraries. Surprisingly, the literature in regard to serial cataloging often seems to neglect the real problems of library users. And although this author has been both a serial cataloger and a serial user, the approach in this paper will be more nearly that of the user seeking to identify some reason for reconsideration of the past and present ways of dealing with serials which may be pertinent in the future. Serials control systems Wed, 01 Jan 1969 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1570 The Serials Perplex: Acquiring Serials in Large Libraries Gellatly, Peter Are serials a drug on the market? We do not really know how many of them there are. William Katz suggests that the current rate of publishing "is increasing roughly three times as fast as the growth of the world's population," and he indicates the criticalness of the situation by stating that "while the world's population dies, the books linger on. We are being told endlessly these days about how big a curse overpopulation is. As for the print explosion, one thing is certain if Katz's figure is correct we need never fear as we go shouldering one another off the earth's surface that we will be at a loss for something to read. If we do not know how many serials are extant people say that between 60 and 80 percent of the world's total publications are in the form of serials we do have some idea as to how many periodicals there are. William Huff says that these number anywhere from 50,000 now, to a figure of 100,000 in 1979.2 We know quite positively that magazines are being produced at a prodigious rate, and in my opinion we do not have to wait until 1979 to reach the 100,000 mark. We are already there. Serials control systems Wed, 01 Jan 1969 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1569 Serials Selection Katz, William A. This paper will consider some relatively unorthodox, fairly bibliographically free aspects of magazine selection an approach in the worst tradition of the essentially fact-for-fact oriented library literature. However, anyone seeking orthodox information about indexes, abstracts or access to bibliographical information on magazines is referred to WinchelFs Guide to Reference Books where it is all put precisely and accurately. In a more discursive readable fashion, William Huff has achieved much the same thing in his exellent article "Periodicals" in the January 1967, issue of Library Trends. Also, in my book, Magazines for Libraries, one will find a relatively exhaustive general and subject bibliography to the field. Discussing what he terms a psychograph of adolescent rebellion, Bruno Bettelheim states that today's youth are frustrated "because modern technology has made them obsolete they have become socially irrelevant and, as persons, insignificant." 1 Much the same might be said of the present art of magazine selection. Technology, from the "until forbidden" order to reliance on indexes and computerized records apparently has made much of the process obsolete. Large libraries, at any rate, now no longer select as much as collect. In so doing, it seems to me, they have made the magazine socially irrelevant, at least to all but a small, highly selected segment of the community. Serials control systems Wed, 01 Jan 1969 00:00:00 GMT