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47.1 FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS FOR DAN RICHARDS
From: Brenda Collins, Harvard <bcollins@warren.med.harvard.edu>
The family decided to postpone the service until those who were traveling long distances could get there; so it will be FRIDAY, not THURSDAY.
Here are the details of the services for Dan Richards:
VISITATION
Thursday, December 14, 1995
7 pm -- 9 pm
Ricker Funeral Home
56 School St.
Lebanon, NH
(603) 448-1568
MEMORIAL SERVICE
Friday, December 15, 1995
10 am
United Methodist Church
17 School St.
Lebanon, NH
The family requests that in lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the AVA Gallery & Art Center, 11 Bank Street, Lebanon, NH 03766, or one's favorite library.
[Editor's note:] Here is some further information from Alison Bunting, UCLA <ECZ5AOB@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>:
Several of you have asked how/where to write to Dan's family. I just spoke to his sister-in-law Darlene Richards, who has agreed to serve as the primary contact for the family. The address is:
Bill and Darlene Richards
P. O. Box 529
Dixfield, Maine 04224
Dan's family is at his house, and Darlene wanted me to let everyone know that they welcome calls from his friends as well. They are taking great comfort in hearing about how Dan has touched others lives. The phone number is 603-543-1014. The best time would be today [Wednesday] or early tomorrow.
47.2 SYMPOSIUM ON SERIALS BUDGET ANALYSIS: PART III (OF III)
From: The Editor
Here is the final installment of responses to the inquiry about subject analysis of serials expenditures. Once again, I want to thank all of the participants. I think they have given us all a wealth of ideas to pursue.
47.3 From: Barbara VanBrimmer, Ohio State Univ.
<bvanbrim@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu>
At Ohio State University Health Sciences Library we use the SCAT (Statistical Categories) table provided on our INNOPAC system to divide our monograph and serial orders into subject categories for a given fiscal year. You can even do a two year comparison if you are so inclined. We have done this for about 3 years in order to provide statistics for the Director of Management Studies at the University. We are not sure how they use this information but so far is has not been used to reduce our acquisition budget.
Anyway, we defined our own table, based on LC classification (that's the classification used at OSU). It's not perfect but it does give us an idea of how our funds are spent. We have not done any real collection development changes based on this information so I guess you could say we are still using the blob method. The big advantage we have is that we could use this information if necessary and it does give us a better idea how funds are spent.
For example, in 1995/96 it looks like about $126,000 for 202 items (books and journals) at an average cost of $625 was spent in physiology where as $9,000 for 63 items at an average cost of $145.00 was spent for psychiatry. Yes, subjects overlap and we do "blend" some of the call numbers. We can also separate the books from the journals for specific reports using the same SCAT table by creating separate boolean searches of books or journals and then running them against the SCAT table.
47.4 From: Connie Poole, Southern Illinois Univ.
<poole@lincoln.siumed.edu>
At Southern Illinois University School of Medicine Library we have created a local database to track expenditures and usage data for evaluating journals and standing orders on an annual basis. Our serials budget is really the "undifferentiated blob" you describe, but we do assign a subject heading to each title (using the headings used in our collection development policy). This would allow us to create reports listing the amount spent on each subject, but I must admit I've never done that. It would not get at clinical vs. experimental without a "grouping" of the subject headings into those categories. I would also need to look more closely at how well the subject headings have been assigned before proceeding too far on a "cost by subject" analysis.
The advantage of the "blob" budget is that we do our cancellations (and additions, when possible) based on usage so do not try to allocate the serials budget by subject. We have many overlapping faculty interests (as do you all) so a strict subject division has always seemed unsuited to our local situation. For example, all faculty see all proposed cancellations and additions, not just those that are in their subject area. So, to summarize, we have the basics in place to track expenditures by subject, but have not done so.
47.5 From: Amrita Burdick, Univ. of Missouri-Kansas City
<burdicka@smtpgate.ssb.umkc.edu>
The University of Missouri-Kansas City Health Sciences Library has a *very* small budget (approx. $160,000.) Most of this is allocated to serials but we are not subdividing this by subject area.
47.6 From: Pamela Rose, University at Buffalo
<HSLMELA@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Cindy Hepfer, University of Buffalo <hslcindy@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu>
Our serials budget is just one large allocation, separated only by new subscriptions, old subscriptions, and back runs. We do not have any easy method in place to analyze by subject and cost. Our vendor, Read-More, does apparently produce a listing but is limited by the subject headings used on OCLC, and we have not requested it.
We have recently assigned MeSH headings to our titles, but have not correlated that with cost.
47.7 From: Melanie Wilson, Univ. of Iowa
At the Hardin Library, University of Iowa, we have six collection funds, one for each of the health sciences colleges/programs we support (medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, speech pathology and audiology, health and hospital administration). The funds support any and all materials purchases in those areas--serials, monographs, AVs, etc., though I can at any time check an online file which shows me what percent of the total amount in each fund has been spent on each format.
Getting information by subject area is a whole other headache. Each year I receive from our Administrative Data Processing center an SAS report showing what serials were purchased from each of the funds, and how much each cost.
While the SAS report is useful, it has several drawbacks. For one thing, it covers ALL serials, including reference works such as Current Medicine Diagnosis and Treatment, which is cataloged as a serial here (we have centralized technical processing). Also, it doesn't include the titles we receive as gift subscriptions. Also, it simply lists the titles alphabetically, rather than by subject. Our online library catalog includes serials titles, and includes subject headings, but it covers all of the University of Iowa Libraries and cannot be searched by location.
In order to try to collect the kind of subject-specific data we need for collection development, an in-house database of our journal subscriptions (both paid and gift) was developed here at the Hardin Library some years ago using Notebook software. Each entry lists the title, subscription cost, usage data, Cost per Use, appropriate broad subject headings, and other data. This data has to be laboriously and continuously updated in order to keep track of increasing journal costs, title changes, etc., but it does provide us with the ability to extract some basic lists of our journal holdings by general subject area, pull out lists of journals with a Cost per Use over a certain amount, and produce lists based on other useful correlations. Subject indexing of the database is very simple as of now, though, so I can't do "fancy" stuff: no way to get a list of all of our clinical journals, for example.
Once lists of titles are extracted from the database, we have to manually add up subscriptions costs to figure out how much we spend on ophthalmology journals, for example. Sigh....
I do think it would be useful to be able to have more detailed breakdowns on how our funds are spent. While this information could be used against us, I think overall it would be useful for short- and long-term collection development decision making, and for budget justification.
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