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49.2 Discussion: Getting Faculty Input
Elaine Deluney
Linda Hulbert
Connie Rinaldo
Judy Rieke
Melissa Nasea
Bill Maina
Danny Jones
Connie Rinaldo
Judy Wilkerson
Richard Gedye
Because this issue got a little long, I am splitting it and will send out the second part by the end of the week.
Don't forget about the all-day MLA Collection Development Symposium that takes place on Saturday, June 1 in Kansas City. Even if I weren't one of the Workshop leaders, I would still say that this is going to be the most valuable collection development CE opportunity you are likely to see for a long time. Registration information is included with the MLA Kansas City Preliminary Program, and there is more information about the Symposium through the MLA Home Page.
DAVID
49.2 DISCUSSION: GETTING FACULTY INPUT
From: Elaine Deluney, Health Sciences Library Memorial University of Newfoundland <eduffie@morgan.ucs.mun.ca>
Suggestion for BLAB survey: something which we are always grappling with here is the question of how to get appropriate input from faculty when making collections decisions, how to stay in touch with what's happening with of faculty and their needs, etc. when making collection development decisions and buying materials. I'd be interested in finding out about the strategies of others in health libraries.
From: Linda Hulbert, St. Louis University Medical Center Library <HULBERTLA@SLUVCA.SLU.EDU>
We get input from our faculty by two usual ways. We have an approval plan and a list of interested faculty members - roughly representing each department. They are named to be liaisons by their chair. Some people are marvelously reliable about coming in; some less so. But it is one avenue. We also have request forms hanging around and are about to include an interactive form on our Website for our domain folks. I give a response to each request so I think people know we take their requests seriously.
We are about to get representatives on all of our curriculum committees in hopes of getting some advanced information for new programs. Hasn't happened yet, but so far all of the deans have thought it's a fine idea. I'll keep you posted.
PS:
We have loaded our Resource Identification Manual (AKA collection development manual) to our website. I have included electronic resources. I hope everyone will take a look - I'd love to hear how useful it is and whether we've covered the ground. I'll bring you in through the University's page cuz I think it is very pretty. http://www.slu.edu Click on libraries/ then on health sciences I look forward to comments - both positive and negative.
One thing we did to better include faculty in collection decisions was to formalize a "Librarian Liaison Program" and roll it out with fanfare. One of the charges for these librarians in their departmental liaison role is to get to know the faculty and curriculum and in this way understand the implications for the collection. We are also working on assessments of the serials and monograph collections that are subject based and require consultation with faculty. I have copies of documents we have written to articulate the goals of the liaison program if anyone is interested.
It seems that there are always a few faculty members that have strong interests in and knowledge about particular subject areas. The important thing is to maintain a broad subject view by getting to know the literature, talking to many users, and understanding the curriculum so a narrow interest doesn't prevail because there is one vocal faculty member.
We maintain ties with departments by attending departmental meetings, being on mailing lists for newsletters and other functions, attending seminars and PhD defenses, grand rounds informational meetings, and lots of other things. Regular meetings with faculty (even if they are infrequent) are also important. These can be individual or group meetings. The more visible the librarians, the more comfortable people seem to be in making suggestions.
We also publish a newsletter (paper and electronic) and frequently request help from faculty on collection issues in these formats.
<AUJZR%UNDJES2.BITNET@VM1.NoDak.EDU>
Our library recently revived a system of faculty/librarian liaisons. We asked all dept. chairs to assign a liaison from their dept to the library. Then our librarians divided up the departments that they wanted to contact. Each has 5 or 6. The librarians are responsible for informing them of new publications plus other things happening, esp journal cuts or new electronic products.
From: Melissa Nasea, East Carolina Univ. <melnas@hsl.hsl.ecu.edu>
I do collection development for journals. Other than Journal Request Forms I do not have any special methods of getting input from faculty.
When we do a journal cancellation project, we include only those titles with comparatively low use in our database. I code each title for the one or two departments or schools that I think would be particularly interested in the title. I then send each department (and the 11 subdepartments in the Department of Internal Medicine) a list tailored to their department, a list for their school, and the complete list. Each department (not faculty member) is asked to rank the journals as to importance. (They can rank the department list from 1 essential to 4 not relevant. They can rank the school and complete lists only 1 or 2. This prevents Anatomy from ranking Criminal Justice titles as 4 or vice versa.)
49.3 DISCUSSION: MANAGING RESTRICTED-ACCESS WEB JOURNALS
From: Bill Maina, Univ. of Texas Southwestern Medical Center <maina@medcat.library.swmed.edu>
I have received notice--through various means--of five journals to which we subscribe that now offer one free WEB access for each personal or institutional subscription to the printed edition. Unfortunately, the publisher's requirements for WEB access differ from journal to journal. For example, ACADEME TODAY, the online version of the CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, allows access only by "a single computer at one reference desk." Our Library is considering whether to open use of these accesses to our clients. But it would require substantial staff time to keep track of each journal's WEB address, password and guidelines for WEB use.
How are libraries represented among the BLAB readership tracking and using these WEB accesses? Or are they not being used?
From: Daniel H. Jones, Univ. of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio <jones@blis.uthscsa.edu>
We have several biomedical titles which provide simultaneous print/electronic access over the internet. These include
Immunology Today Online [http://www.ref.oclc.org:2000]
Nucleic Acids Research
[http://www.oup.co.uk/nar/]
Protein Science [http://www.prosci.uci.edu/]
Physics in Medicine and Biology [http://www.iop.org]
In addition we subscribe to the following electronic only internet access journals:
The Online journal of current clinical trials
[http://www.ref.oclc.org:2000
The Online journal of knowledge synthesis for nursing
[http://www.ref.oclc.org:2000]
Bill Maina is correct about the challenges of providing access to them. In my opinion, the producers of these products clearly have NOT designed them for a library setting. Account numbers and login/password options, etc. vary for each title, and URL's change. We have journal records for each title in our OPAC and have begun to enter the WWW address, account numbers, passwords, etc. in a holdings note that is visible to the public. I know this is not ideal, but at least for now all our staff know where to look to get the information so they can show our users how to access the journals, and the Internet-savvy user who sees the record in the catalog might figure this out for themselves. And if we find out that a URL has changed we will update it in the catalog.
During ALA Mid-Winter, which was here in San Antonio this year, I visited with two groups which are interested in providing a bridge between electronic journals and libraries. One group, Cadmus Digital Solutions, is associated with the Waverly Press, a major printer of clinical medical journals and medical society publications. Cadmus is planning to provide a "platform" through which societies can create electronic versions of their publications and sell them to libraries under terms specified by each publisher. I think the Cadmus folks learned a lot they didn't know about dealing with libraries, and I'm not sure it was all that enouraging for them. Cadmus produces JOURNALS@HOME [http://JOURNALS.AT-HOME.COM/], if you're interested in seeing a current product of their's.
I also visited with a vendor that is planning to market an electronic journal subscription management service in the next 2 years. They have figured out that managing passwords, account numbers, license agreements, etc. might be something that libraries would want to pay a vendor to handle, just like we use them to consolidate orders and payments to publishers, etc. It is possible that they will be able to create a link to these electronic publications that will allow seamless access to the journals to authorized users.
We have gopher access to the Federal Register and Commerce Business Daily from Counterpoint Publishing and provide the URL [gopher://gopher.counterpoint.com] for these in the catalog, too. I think Counterpoint's solution for electronic access is ideal for libraries; it allows access to anyone connecting via the internet from the subscriber's domain. No passwords, account numbers, etc. are necessary, and if your domain name is not registered with them (as a result of a paid subscription) then it does not allow access. I wish all publishers would go this route.
Related to Bill's post about "one free WEB access for each personal or institutional print subscription", does it strike anyone else as rather miserly for a publisher to only allow ONE free access for an institutional print subscription? Elsevier called yesterday about Immunology Today Online, and I told them they should permit a minimum of 5 simultaneous users for an institutional subscriber. After all, more than one person at a time can read the print subscription in the library.
From: Constance Rinaldo, Dartmouth College <Constance.Rinaldo@Dartmouth.EDU>
We put web URLs of journals to which we subscribe in the body of the cataloging record so that they are part of the public display in the online catalog. The URLs are not currently "hot-linked" but programming for this feature is under consideration. We also are testing the process of making web journals available via a library home page. The library home page URL is in the public access record, again not hot-linked.
From: Judith Wilkerson, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center <jwilkers@REM.re.uokhsc.edu>
We are currently experimenting with cataloging selected electronic materials in our Library OPAC, which does not support the CONSER fields for URL location, and holdings.
We have experimented with using note fields 506,535,and 580 for indicating the limited access, URL, and Also available... notes. Our policy for adding an internet address as a copy is that it must be full text. It must be in scope. If we own a title and there is an alternative electronic version, especially if the electronic version is very similar, even if it does not contain all backfiles, it is added.
If a site has tables of contents and abstracts, we are experimenting with notes to point to that site. Since indexing is handled differently, we are not sure we see that as an internet site. I think that is a topic for discussion. Should the URL or the name of the home page be in a 510?
In the rare case that we have electronic archives of a journal, which we decide to add, they are housed in Non-Print Media and we are committing the heresy of showing them as a copy 2, currently.
The only issue on which we all agree is that some of these resources should be added to the catalog because our patrons need them. Whether or not they are treated as additional copies (heresy) or as separate cataloging when we own the paper journal is under discussion.
We have defined a location in our catalog for Internet journals, so that holdings screen displays the Internet as the location and a free text call number indicates "World Wide Web" or "HSC Gopher".
Currently, we only have a few titles in the catalog which are not also in paper version in the Library. They are mostly newsletters which are in scope, but which are not in paper, or which we would not try to collect.
From: Richard Gedye, Oxford University Press <gedyer@oup.co.uk>
[Editor's Note: I have included this recent submission from Richard Gedye at OUP here, since it provides a good example of the current challenge confronting libraries. The requirement that libraries have available their subscriber number (taken from the mailing label) sounds innocent enough, until you realize that in many libraries the mailing wrapper is routinely discarded prior to check-in.]
Subject: Nucleic Acids Research Online
After my original message last year about the launch of NAR Online, we have had a substantial number of very helpful comments and feedback from people who have visited the site. As a result of some of the comments, we have now decided to extend a more liberal institutional access policy until the end of 1996. There will be an announcement about this printed in Volume 24 Issue 6, but I thought BLAB members might like to see it in advance.
Here is the formal announcement:-
"As a special introductory offer, anyone who is from an institution that has a subscription to the 1996 print version of Nucleic Acids Research may register free of charge for full access to NAR Online until December 1996. If your organization has an institutional subscription, each person wishing to use the service will need to register to obtain their own personal username and password in order to gain maximum benefit from the services available on this site. To complete the registration process, they will need to quote your institutional subscriber number."
HOW DO I ACCESS NAR ONLINE?
Simply go to http://www.oup.co.uk/nar/
For 1996, you can access the complete text of NAR Online if:-
1. You have your own personal print subscription
Just visit the NAR Online web site to register. You'll need to have your subscriber number ready (it's printed on your subscription address label that comes with each issue).
2. Your institution has a library subscription
Ask your librarian for the library's subscription number, then register yourself at the NAR Online web site. Remember to use your own name when you register (not that of the library) and to create your own personal password. Then we can send you advance table of contents information by e-mail and also let you know immediately of any changes or enhancements to the online access system.
(Note: this FAQ is addressed to end-users. As a librarian, if you would like us to e-mail you with advance TOCs and any updates about system enhancements, it would be worth while registering yourself as a user, even if you are not actually going to be using NAR Online regularly yourself.)
I hope you find this information helpful. All questions, comments and suggestions, etc on NAR Online's quality, speed, ease of use, facilities, and options will continue to be greatly welcomed. We've already done a lot to enhance NAR Online as a result of the feedback so far, and we look forward to continuing to do so.
| The BIOMEDICAL LIBRARY ACQUISITIONS BULLETIN (ISSN: 1064-699X) is published
by
the Medical Library Association's Collection Development Section with the
cooperation of the University of Southern California Norris Medical Library.
BLAB is published more or less monthly, and includes items of news and opinion
contributed by its readers concerning biomedical library acquisitions.
Editor: David H. Morse: dmorse@hsc.usc.edu. Paper mail: USC Norris Medical Library, 2003 Zonal Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90033. Telephone: (213) 342-1134. The BULLETIN is distributed free of charge, in electronic form only. Back issues of BLAB are available at http://colldev.mlanet.org/BLAB/.
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