Potomac Technical Processing Librarians 77th Annual Meeting

Abstract

Serials Review visits the Immigration History Research Center (IHRC) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Center's mission is to teach the importance of immigration studies and promote the use of the IHRC collections, which concentrate on immigration to America from 1880 through the beginning of the twentieth century from eastern, central, and southern Europe and the Near East. The Center also supports Collections Online: A Digital Library of American Immigration &; Ethnic History (COLLAGE), a database of images and narratives from the archives. Serials Review 2003; 29:151–153.     

Serials spoken here: Reports on conferences institutes and seminars

Abstract

This installment of Bits and Bytes addresses Geac's ADVANCE integrated library system release 6.82. By tracing serial titles through the entire library processing route, the reader follows how ADVANCE facilitates each routine, from ordering to receiving to check-in (including claiming and binding). Serials Review 2002; 28:116–125.     

ANSI Z39.42 and OCLC: OCLC′s Implementation of the American National Standard Institute′s Serial Holdings Statements at the Summary Level

Abstract

In response to fiscal pressure, increasing user demand, preservation needs, and concerns regarding future access to scholarly journal content, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation's (CIC) Center for Library Initiatives (CLI) has embarked on developing several publisher-based print journal archives. These print archives include titles from Elsevier's Academic Press and the complete publisher runs from John Wiley and Sons and Springer. This article is an overview of the processes and rationale for each archive and the corresponding lessons learned from these implementations.     

A Multitude of Voices: Pushcart Prize Winning Publications 1976–2006

The Pushcart Prize, established in 1976, has a well-deserved reputation for highlighting the best in small press publication. The authors examined the first thirty volumes, 1976/1977 through 2006, to identify attributes of the items included in each volume and placed the volumes into five time periods of six volumes each to facilitate trend analysis. In order to identify the most productive publications, titles that had fewer than four selections in the thirty volumes and did not appear in at least two time periods were eliminated. The authors examined: press status as independent or affiliated, state and region where published, and type of work (poetry or other). Finally, highly productive titles were reviewed in WorldCat to determine how frequently these were held in the United States.California, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio have a continuing, substantial presence in the Prize volumes. Most of the publications included were still active and were affiliated with a larger institution. The three small press titles appearing most frequently were Ploughshares, Paris Review, and American Poetry Review. The Pushcart Prize selections most frequently listed in WorldCat were the Hudson Review, the Paris Review, and the American Poetry Review. Each is held by more than eight hundred U.S. libraries.     

OCLC's Role in the CONSER Project

The implementation of OCLC's claims component represents a significant investment in time and money in order to obtain automatic claims or identification of needed issues for perhaps three-quarters of the serial collection. At this early stage, a lack of experience and sureness in applying the component's capabilities to the vagaries of serial publications demands a certain fortitude. A number of concerns appear valid and cast a shadow on the hoped-for results. Implementation further means the establishment of a program for updating vital parts of the component. The training of a specialized team schooled in the nuances of publication schedules and in the synthesis of related library records, and capable of making possibly costly judgments forms the component's foundation. This followed by the training of check-in and related support staff will drive the component and determine its eventual success.     

An Interview with Steve Shadle

Abstract

Bonnie Parks interviewed Steve Shadle, serials cataloger for University of Washington Libraries, in August 2002. In this interview Shadle provides a cataloger's perspective on the challenges he and other serials catalogers face in the organization and management of electronic and print serial titles. Serials Review 2002; 28:321–326.     

The Balance Point: Keeping Serial Bibliographic Records Viable in a Digital Age

Abstract

Michael Norman, head of serials cataloging at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) library, describes his library's development of an integrated management system for serials, the Online Research Resources (ORR). The ORR was designed to draw together and deliver to the public a wide range of information related to the library's serial holdings that previously could only be obtained by consulting a number of sources. With a single search, UIUC patrons can now consult the ORR for serials information such as variant titles, online availability, subject categories, print summary statements, ISI impact factor, where the title is indexed, and whether it is peer reviewed—an innovation sorely needed and highly welcomed by librarians and patrons alike.     

Harper's Magazine

An analysis of the performance of five major review periodicals showed that School Library Journal and Booklist were most likely to have reviewed both a large percentage of total juvenile publication and those books singled out by the 1972–1974 and 1978–1980 Notable Children's Books Committees; the New York Times Book Review was least likely to have done so. There was a decline in coverage of the selected titles by the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. Even so, Bulletin and Horn Book, as well as Booklist and SLJ, continued to do a good job of calling attention to better books.

Recent reviews appeared closer to the publication date of the book in question, with the time lag reduced in all but the New York Times, where it increased. Booklist's record of little more than a month was relatively impressive, with all other periodicals taking over two months or more, on the average. Each periodical showed tremendous internal inconsistency in promptness, however.

The longest reviews, on the average, were published in NYTBR, the shortest in Bulletin. Recent reviews in SLJ and Booklist were longer than those found for the earlier sample.

All but Horn Book reviews reflected increased critical attention in general. The practice of referring to other books and authors continued on a limited but definite scale for 1978–1980 titles. Attempts to predict readership were somewhat more likely to appear in the more recent issues of Booklist and Bulletin than earlier.

The use of volunteer reviewers by School Library Journal resulted in a multiplicity of reviewers (25 people). Horn Book and NYTBR utilized eight people each. Booklist and Bulletin relied on reviews prepared by fulltime staffers.

Opinions on general quality of the books examined continued to be basically consistent.     

Serials Clutter in Online Catalogs

Abstract

Finding and deciphering serials records in online catalogs is a challenge to many library users. To understand and analyze these challenges, the author conducted searches for scientific journal titles in the online catalogs of Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) libraries. The first part of the study measures the difficulty of retrieving serial records from online catalogs comparing one-word versus multiple-word titles. The second part analyzes displays for complexity by measuring the length of the complete record and the length of the holdings statements. These data show the complexity of displays and indicate the potential confusion that these displays may induce in library users.     

Testing for Serial Independence: Beyond the Portmanteau Approach

Portmanteau tests are typically used to test serial independence even if, by construction, they are generally powerful only in presence of pairwise dependence between lagged variables. In this article, we present a simple statistic defining a new serial independence test, which is able to detect more general forms of dependence. In particular, differently from the Portmanteau tests, the resulting test is powerful also under a dependent process characterized by pairwise independence. A diagram, based on p-values from the proposed test, is introduced to investigate serial dependence. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposal is evaluated in a simulation study and with an application on financial data. Both show that the new test, used in synergy with the existing ones, helps in the identification of the true data-generating process. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

Failure Rates and Publication Status: Periodicals Reviewed in Library Journal (1980–2005) and Database Accuracy

Abstract

Life spans of periodicals are described for all titles reviewed in Library Journal's (LJ) “Magazines” column from 1980 through 2005 using data from WorldCat, EBSCO's Serials Directory and Ulrichsweb. Fifty-four percent of the periodicals reviewed in LJ have failed. The highest rate of failure is in the first few years of publication, but there remains a substantial failure rate thereafter. The many challenges of keeping accurate records on end dates for periodicals are discussed in the context of cooperative cataloging under CONSER's leadership. The relative strengths and weaknesses of data in WorldCat, Serials Directory and Ulrichsweb are discussed and quantified.     

City Magazines

Abstract

This study compared two lists of full-text content available in Academic Search Elite. EBSCO provided the lists to the University College of the Fraser Valley. In this study, focus was placed on the accuracy of the claims of full-text content, because the staff and library users at University College of the Fraser Valley (UCFV, British Columbia) depend on this database as part of the libraries' journal collection. Interlibrary loan staff routinely used a printed list of Academic Search Elite to check whether the journal was available at UCFV in electronic form; therefore, an accurate supplemental list or lists of the library's electronic journals was essential for cost-conscious interlibrary loan staff. The results of the study were that there were inaccuracies in the coverage of fifty-seven percent of the journals sampled. Serials Review 2003; 29:11–15.     

Evaluation of Library Bindings

Abstract

When the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) was created in the 1970s as an identifier of journal titles, electronic formats of serials did not exist. As electronic formats of articles emerged for the same creative content, the ISSN changed from a work identifier to a manifestation (format) identifier. This article explores the role of the ISSN as a manifestation identifier of a serial in the electronic and paper environments and questions its suitability as such in linking citations to online articles. Serials Review 2003; 29:89–96.     

Millennium Serials Module of Innovative Interfaces,Inc

Abstract

This article addresses the Millennium Serials module of Innovative Interfaces, Inc. The author traces serial titles through the total library process and examines how Millennium Serials (Innovative Interfaces, Inc.) facilitates each task, from ordering to receiving to check-in (including claiming and binding). Serials Review 2002; 28: 213–221.     

Newsletters for Networks

Abstract

In the previous installment of this column, Donnice Cochenour wrote about Project Muse, Johns Hopkins University Press's project to provide electronic access to its journals. This column will explore OCLC's collaboration with publishers who are making traditional print publications available electronically. Serials Review interviewed Andrea Keyhani, Manager of Electronic Publishing at OCLC, about traditional print publishers' interests in electronic distribution of journals, OCLC's solution to publishers' migration to electronic distribution, enhancements to their Guidon software, and libraries' costs and archive concerns.     

One for Nine: The Shared Cataloging Program of the California Digital Library

Abstract

In 1999, the California Digital Library (CDL) began a new cooperative venture, the Shared Cataloging Program, to improve access to its growing collection of electronic resources. Now known within the University of California (UC) as the SCP, the Shared Cataloging Program, based at UC San Diego, distributes ready-to-use cataloging records for all electronic titles licensed by the CDL to each of the other eight (soon to be nine) physical UC campuses. The SCP is the result of an intensive systemwide planning process fostered by a desire for an innovative approach to providing traditional bibliographic access to large numbers of electronic resources. It was launched out of pragmatic necessity along with an institutional commitment to the cooperative ideals of labor-savings, experimentation, and the search for “best practices.” This article will describe its genesis, current operation, one library's use of the records, and issues for future development. Serials Review 2002; 28:4–12.     

The 5K Run Toolkit: A Quick,Painless, and Thoughtful Approach to Managing Print Journal Backruns

Abstract

Increasingly, academic libraries are choosing to discard or place in storage print journals that are now available online. The identification of these titles and related collection analysis activities are often time-intensive. The approach at the University of Saskatchewan Library was to develop an online toolkit that combined available data from disparate sources including the integrated library system, SFX link resolver, and OCLC's WorldCat and then present them in a collaborative open source environment. This paper demonstrates how the careful combination of existing data presented in a simple online format allowed subject specialists to make accurate print journal deselection decisions quickly and painlessly.     

The Exchange of Publications; An Alternative to Acquisitions

Abstract

In March 2001 the Canadian National Site Licensing Project (CNSLP) enabled the University of Saskatchewan Library to add over seven hundred electronic titles to its journal collection. The CNSLP titles introduced a critical mass of electronic journals to library patrons, offering a complex and intriguing range of supplementary content and a transformation of the experience of reading scientific journals. This article reports on the plug-ins and add-ons required to access supplementary content in the CNSLP electronic journals and explores the implications of supplementary content for readers. Serials Review 2003; 29:103–116.