Microform subscriptions (Cyndi Glass) ANN ERCELAWN 04 Sep 1993 01:20 UTC
Date: 03 Sep 93 15:42:57 EDT From: <CGLASS@VUNET.VINU.EDU> To: <serialst@uvmvm.uvm.edu> Subject: Addr: intro/question Hello--I joined this list yesterday, so I want to say "hi" etc. I have been running our serials dept. for six years. We are a very small library, and I am not professional staff. I handle all the magazines, binding, microforms, telephone directories, pocket parts/reference updates, reference newsletters, indexes, ordering, bills, claims, renewals, union listing, NOTIS updating, and newspapers. I process everything myself and I supervise a student who puts it all out for me. We have approximately 600 subscriptions. I am part of the technical services dept. here, and my boss is a professional staff person. The other people in my department (2) do computer work, ordering, and manual processing for the books. The professional librarians (my boss, a circ. coor., two ref. libs, and the director) make the decisions as to what to order, renew, and cancel, and I do the actual processing of those. I really enjoy this type of work, especially since we are on NOTIS now, and I can check in my stuff on that (we don't have acquisitions or serials--we just put it on a DHLD record). I also helped with our book barcoding. I have been looking for a way to communicate with other people who do my type of work ever since I started here, without luck-- everyone seems to do things differently than we do it here :) I would like to hear from anyone who feels like talking about serials work in general, NOTIS, OCLC, pricing, etc. OK--now for my question--our library is considering switching several (about 40) of our microform subscriptions from UMI to Newsbank, who is much cheaper. They have told me to do this. While I have been working on it I have noticed that Newsbank seems to not realize that some publications run on something other than a calendar year, have a title incorrect in their title listing, and just a few other small things that have added up to make me very wary of going in that direction. I told our acq. lib about this, and he said he would call some other libraries around here that have the Newsbank service to see what their opinion is. I feel that it is my responsibility to let them know of a problem that might occur before it does, even though it is not my decision where to purchase things, and he agreed with me on this, but I wanted to solicit opinions on here too. Have any of you switched? How is the service? Are the customer service representatives knowledgeable about things the way UMI's reps are? UMI has gotten so expensive that they want me to do this mostly because it is so much less expensive, and also the delivery is supposedly monthly instead of quarterly, and it is free, and it is for every title, not just some. I would really appreciate any advice/comments anyone can give me, about this problem or anything else. Nice talking with you :) --Cyndi