Link to the Conference I mentioned in class

Link to the Fisher Forum International Conference: 

Book Arts, Culture and Media in Russia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia: From Print to Digital

http://www.reec.uiuc.edu/events/fisher.html

Tech. Serv. from a public library perspective.

I thought I would post a little information from my job experiences. Technical services in public libraries is a bit different from the academic setting. In the public world materials' budgets tend to be a teeney tiny fraction the size of typical academic budgets. The line between materials selection, acquisitions, and collection development can be blurred. Preservation and conservation are very rare. Many book repairs consist of slapping some PVC into the book to secure the damaged areas in the hopes of squeezing a few more circulations out of it before it gets weeded. Mold damage is usually the kiss of death for an item. Weeding due to space constraints is very common. Serials control is very similar but the number of on-line electronic resources is limited to usually only one or two,such as OCLC's FirstSearch and Ebscohost.

Since I've been a de facto serials technician for the past 5 1/2 years, I'll go into a little detail of what serials check-in is. What happens is that (in public libraries at least) you want a record for each issue of a serial so that patrons can check-out the issue. You also want to be able to generate claims for missed issues (serials aren't free). In SIRSI Workflows (I'm not sure how this works in Voyager but 'tis prolly similar) you create what is called a control record for the title. The control record is used to generate predictions about which issue should be expected next. Once the control record is in place you can "check-in" issues as they arrive. Serials check-in takes less than a minute (the time it takes to verify that the item in hand is the same as what is expected). Once checked in the software automatically appends the holdings records, etc., etc. I have found that this method is somewhat less labor intensive than older serials tracking stragies (i.e. ye old shelf list cards). The software can also be used to automatically generate claims to the vendor for missed issues, again cutting down on the actual labor time spent on the task. I know that this sounds as clear as mud but, it is really something you have to experience hands on to get a feel for.

When it comes to physical processing of materials we do alot of preventive maintenance, reinforcing end papers with Kapco tape, laminating trade and mass market paperbacks, or using book tape to reinforce the spines and corners of paperbacks that are either to small or to large to merit full cover lamination. Of course alot of popular fiction and nonfiction hard cover books come with dust jackets. Those are also covered and secured to the item.

Well, I hope this picture sheds a little light on what public library practices are like. Of course, as we discussed, there is actually little standardization since alot of practices are actually determined at the local level and there is more than a little territoritality over local practices and some actual hostility towards actual standardization of practices.

 Jacob