ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


630 /  C&RL News

Making the most of your serials budget

Libraries a n d  lib ra ria n s  n e e d e d  fo r 
in te rn a tio n a l e x c h a n g e s
ALA's Joint Committee on International Ex­
changes is building a database of U.S. and in­
ternational libraries and librarians interested in 
international study visits or exchanges. Requests 
for information and inclusion on the database 
for and from all countries of the world are w el­
comed, although in 1992-1994 special atten­
tion will be given to visits and exchanges with 
East/Central Europe and the countries of the 
former Soviet Union. Librarians considering a 
study visit abroad are invited to request an in­
put form to be included in the database. Al­
ready the Moscow Library Association, the Na­
tional Library of Romania, the Library and 
Technical University o f Budapest, the Univer­
sity Library at the Lajos Kosuth University in 
Debrecen (Hungary), the National Library of 
Prague, and the National University Library of 
Macedonia have offered to host American li­
brarians. Committee members are prepared to 
act as go-betweens and to assist those inter­
ested in finding sources of financial support.

The committee has received letters from 
Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, 
and the Commonwealth of Independent States 
such as this from Lyubov, a reference librarian

in a science library, “Neither w e nor our chil­
dren will live to see the society w e are trying to 
built today. So I dream to see America—coun­
try of the future, as I imagine it.”

For more information contact Opritsa Popa, 
chair, ALA IRC/IRRT Joint Committee on Inter­
national Exchanges, University of California, 
Davis, Shields Library, Davis, CA 95616.

Reference help a v a ila b le  on the Internet
Need help answering a difficult reference ques­
tion? “Stumper L” may be able to help. Stu­
dents at Rosary College’s Graduate School of 
Library and Information Science are operating 
a listserv on the Internet. Librarians can send 
in questions they n eed  help finding answers 
to and the graduate students send the q u es­
tions on to the over 500 librarians in 5 coun­
tries that subscribe. The subscribers then re­
spo n d  directly to the questioners using the 
Internet.

Questions sent to “Stumper L” have included 
“What state driver educational manuals allow 
advertising?” “How can one make a native Ameri­
can dream catcher?” and “What is the origin of 
the phrase ‘run-of-the-mill’?” To subscribe to 
the service send the message "Sub Stumper L 
(your nam e)” to Mail-serv@crf.cuis.edu. ■

During the past four years of increased se­
rials prices coupled with decreased institutional 
budgets and statewide funding, the University 
o f M assachusetts M edical C enter Library 
(UMMCL) has been able to increase subscrip­
tions from about 2,100 to 2,500 titles. Two 
approaches made this 20% increase possible.

First, the policy of using only one sub­
scription agent was evaluated and abandoned. 
Surveys show ed that: 1) some publishers gave 
10-55% discounts w ith no a d d ed  service 
charges; 2) some domestic subscription agents 
added 3.5-4.9% service charges for all titles;
3) some domestic book dealers supplied do­
mestic continuations at 12-15% discounts; and
4) som e foreign subscription agents dis­
counted foreign titles 3.5-5.0%. Because of 
these findings, subscriptions were redirected 
as follows: foreign serials to a foreign agent; 
discounted domestic titles to the publishers; 
non-discounted domestic titles to publishers 
w hose total annual subscription costs ex­

ceeded $10,000; domestic continuations to a 
book dealer; and remaining titles to a do­
mestic agent.

Second, the n eed  for subscriptions by 
som e of the Medical Center’s revenue-gener­
ating components w as brought to the atten­
tion of administrative units. Potential cuts in 
subscriptions were equated with potential cuts 
in abilities to provide quality patient care and 
perform important basic research. As a result, 
supplemental funds w ere appropriated in or­
der to maintain and add titles.

Thus, during a period w hen many aca­
demic libraries had to reduce subscription 
levels, the UMMCL was able to keep pace with 
the ever-increasing volume of scientific peri­
odical literature. Testifying to the value of this 
information, the library now  supplies over 
2,000 interlibrary loan articles per m onth to 
its region o f the country.—D onald Morton, 
University o f  Massachusetts Medical Center Li­
brary ■

mailto:Mail-serv@crf.cuis.edu