---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 10:10:45 -0500
From: Robert Dowd <rdowd@MAIL.NYSED.GOV>
Subject: Re: LDRS (Mitch Turitz)

I am not personally convinced that serials ILL (i.e. photocopying) is
'the' reason a library should input Local Data Records into the OCLC Union
List.  I find union lists far more valuable than just ILL vehicles.

Do libraries with rare serials (and I mean those that would not generally
be thrown onto copiers by student assistants to fulfill ILL requests)
union list them?  Even materials not available for "loan" might still be
well controlled and made known in the national database, allowing someone
walk into a library and use them.

In the print world, the 'double work' of needing to input serials holdings
into 2 systems has been suggested as a reason that libraries might focus
on OPAC maintenance in favor of the OCLC union list.  Would a service that
could update the OCLC holdings file in batch mode from OPAC data need to
ignore e-serials included in a library's local catalog?

And are we speaking here only about electronic serials union listed on a
'print' record?  Are libraries also *not* hanging symbols on cataloged
e-serials for the same reasons they hesitate to union list e-serials?

Do membership consortial agreements among similar libraries make decision
making more difficult if the national database is not kept current?  If
among "your 10" libraries there is a historic sharing agreement, does
leaving important information out of a national file do members of such
group a disservice?

Is perhaps the real reason we sometimes *don't* do one thing or another
simply because it is "too difficult?"

Bob Dowd
Newspaper Project
NY State Library