[WEB4LIB] Re: FW: Important Article -II

[David Merchant]

>>>First, we waste their money buying books they don't use,
>>>just in case they might want them.
>>
>>Hmm, I've seen that it is often the buying of outrageously priced serials
>>that most hurt our abilities to buy books.
>
>Well, this is just another manifestation of the same thing.  It is buying 
>something that someone may want to use, or may not.  Yes, a serial 
>generally costs more than a book, but so what?

Not to sound flippant, but since a serial generally costs a lot more than a
book, sometimes very very very much more than a book, my answer to the "so
what" is that buying a $50 book that may not be used hurts our ability to
buy other books much less than buying a $2,500 serial (or a $250 serial).

>>library, to be loaned out.  If every library goes "book Y is used only once
>>a year, so lets not keep it"
>
>The problem you state is easily handled by "cooperative collection 
>development" or what is set up in some states or consortia as "last copy 
>storage".  NO ONE discards their copy if it is the last in the system, or 
>the last copy is sent to a central repository.

OK, my fault, I should've said "book Y would not be very popular, so lets
not buy it" and if every library thought that, it would never be bought,
etc.  How would the cooperative collection development  handle that?
Library A must buy a book they'd rather not buy so that the other libraries
won't have to and thus have at least one copy for ILL, then Library B must
buy the next book, which they'd rather not buy either, so that other
libraries won't have to but it'll be available by ILL.  The logistics of
managing that Globally would be daunting to say the least.  Between two
libraries, that would be do-able I would think.  And having "last copy
storage" I'm sure has it's own problems: the Global approach would
encourage a lot more of that, copies of not-often loaned out books, would
be tossed with one library keeping a last copy, and access time to books
over all would start increasing.  Think your local library doesn't have the
book you want now 50-60% of the time?  If this article's plan was to
happen, I think that number would jump quite a bit!  That article is
looking for a "Golden Bullet" for collection development, and there just
ain't one folks.  At least I'm very very skeptical about its existenance.
I could be wrong, heck, I'm wrong often, but that's just me humble opinion
on the matter %-}.

>>highly technical books) and thus the publisher very quickly stops
>>publishing it
>
>Again, answers exist.  "On demand publishing" (which one major publisher 
>has apparently done well on) and electronic publishing.  Why do you keep 

And if we go that route, and go more and more to it (OK, this may be a
slippery slope fallacy but bear with me), then access time to books
increase yet again.  "I want book x"  "OK, we'll order a printing of it,
then after we paid for it, and have it sent to us, you get it."  And plus,
which library buys that book that is published on demand?  The one the
patron walks into?  Let's say that patron is doing some esoteric research
and needs a dozen books that must be published on demand?  There goes the
library's budget!  And it now has books that no one else may want to check
out  much at all (but it could lend to others though).  But the library is
still spending ("wasting") monies on books that aren't used by the 80% of
the patrons.

>thinking in terms of traditional books now that there are electronic 
>options?  Perhaps last copies should be scanned for "central storage", or 
>distributed storage.

Ugh.  Scanned.  Studies have shown over and over that reading a book
electronically is not as easy as reading it off of paper.  For articles,
for short subjects, for some research, electronic options would be great.
But to read some tome of forgotten lore electronically?  Nah.  Of course,
one could print it out.  Which would mean high quality printer and all that
paper printing out and out ... shifting the cost of production of the book
from the publisher to the library or the patron or both.

>Consider that multitude of alternatives out there.....let's think outside 
>of our traditional library boxes.

I do all time :-).  I just don't believe that looking outside of the
traditional box should mean discarding that box.  The answers aren't always
outside.  Once in awhile, they are some old tried and proven method.  Maybe
just once in a great while, mind you! 

But thanks for pointing out some things I've overlooked in my haste to
disagree with that article.

TTFN,
David
Systems Librarian, Louisiana Tech University  <www.latech.edu/tech/library/>
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