Ah - but what about the Making of Modern Law? Which we purchased at a not
insignificant amount of money, so we do own the archives in addition to
paying for a yearly access fee? We also shelled out the money to buy the
cataloging and had the records cleaned by an outside vendor (because Gale
didn't understand the concept of that - another story).
But the bottom line is that we added access to 22,000 electronic titles to
our online catalog for things that we bought so our patrons could use more
easily, only to find in the ABA statistics that the only thing they care
about is how much we spent, not how many titles we added. We are not happy
about this one at all.
Anne Myers
Head of Technical Services
Boston University Law Library
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu [mailto:owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu] On Behalf
Of Mike Saporito
Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2005 1:38 PM
To: 'Joseph Hinger'; law-lib@ucdavis.edu
Cc: 'Linda Ryan'; ptejeda@charlestonlaw.org; feld@ymail.yu.edu;
james.mumm@marquette.edu
Subject: RE: ABA questionnaire
Joseph -
My only guess to why the online does not count is that you do not own it. If
your subscription lapses, the db provider goes under, etc you have nothing -
you only have the rights to the material in the e-format for the length of
your contract.
Take care,
Michael J. Saporito
Manager of Document Delivery Services
Collection Maintenance Supervisor
The Social Law Library
John Adams Courthouse
One Pemberton Square, Suite 4100
Boston, MA 02108-1792
Telephone: (617) 226-1343
Fax: (617) 523-2458
E-mail: msaporito@socialaw.com
Document Orders: http://www.socialaw.com/services/dd/order.htm
_____
From: owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu [mailto:owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu] On Behalf
Of Joseph Hinger
Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2005 1:27 PM
To: law-lib@ucdavis.edu
Cc: Linda Ryan; ptejeda@charlestonlaw.org; feld@ymail.yu.edu;
james.mumm@marquette.edu
Subject: ABA questionnaire
In filling out the recent 2004/2005 ABA Annual Questionnaire, I was quite
surprised at some of the changes in this year's questions, specifically
relating to electronic and web-based titles. It appears as if electronic
and/or web-based titles or products are NOT counted anywhere in the title
count, however, we ARE permitted to count them as a serial subscription (if
they are serials) if they are cataloged separately in the library's catalog.
These questions and definitions seem a bit illogical to me. Historically,
at least in my 15 years of working Law Library Technical Services, emphasis
has been put more and more each year on the phrase "if you have it cataloged
in your system on a record, then it can be counted." In many libraries,
micro titles are NOT cataloged to title level contained within the package,
therefore, no counting should take place. If libraries do have the
financial resources and manpower to catalog such packages at the title
level, and you have records in your system for these titles, then by all
means they can be counted. Over the past 10 to 15 years, libraries have
spent great financial resources in cataloging such packages, as well as
purchasing cataloging for these packages from outside vendors; thus,
allowing us to count such titles.
What makes the online world so different? If I catalog something online,
whether it is a serial subscription, or a monograph, or a map, etc., I
should be permitted to count it, as I have a record in my catalog.
The way I see the questionnaire this year, NOT being able to count
electronic and/or web-based titles or products, whether I have a
bibliographic/cataloging record for it or not, leads me to believe that the
overall direction of the questionnaire could change from year to year. I
personally believe, that in alignment with the past questionnaires, that
libraries should be able to count whatever they want, as long as there is a
bibliographic/cataloging record for it in your library system. In my
library, we have spent great amounts of financial resources, time, manpower,
etc., to catalog our retrospective microform titles AND our online
resources, as we tended to believe that "if we cataloged it, we could count
it." Now we are being told differently, regarding web-based/electronic
titles. I hope to see this disparity corrected in future ABA
Questionnaires.
A recommendation that I have is for us to be alerted at least a year in
advance what the questions will be in the coming year. Receiving the
questionnaire after the timeframe for which the statistics are requested has
caused me major manipulation of the information in my online system. Had I
known what they would be asking a year ago, I could have "recoded" my
system to recount these statistics well in advance of receiving the
questionnaire.
This past year at the AALL meeting, there were several sessions on
statistics and counting, that were very interesting and thought provoking.
I'm sure any discussion about this topic would be appreciated by the
Statistics Committee of AALL, as well as the Subcommittee on Serials
Statistics, which is a subcommittee of the the Serials Committee of the
Technical Services SIS.
I would love to hear others feelings about this ABA Questionnaire situation,
and how others are approaching these changed questions.
Joseph Hinger
Associate Librarian for Technical Services
St. John's University
Rittenberg Law Library
8000 Utopia Parkway
Jamaica, NY 11439
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