Newsletter of the IFLA Section on Serial Publications

No. 38,
November 2000

The Newsletter continues presenting the activities of serials interest groups all over the world. You will find in this issue the greatest and longest standing organisations in this respect. If you would like to share information on such a special interest group in your country your input is more than welcome.

Minutes of the Standing Committee Meeting of the IFLA Section on Serial Publications

66th IFLA General Conference, Jerusalem, August 13-18, 2000

Saturday, 12th August, 2000

Attendants:

SC members: Marjorie Bloss (Center for Research Libraries, USA), Karen Darling (University of Missouri-Columbia, USA), Jean Farrington (Lehigh University, USA), Elizabeth Gazdag (ISSN, Hungary), Agneta Holmenmark (Royal Library, Sweden), Nina Khakhaleva (Russian State Library), Cathérine Omont (Bibliothèque Nationale de France), Hartmut Walravens (Berlin State Library, Germany);

Ex officio member: Françoise Pellé (ISSN IC, France);

Observers: Ruth Haas (Harvard University, USA), Geir Rise (National Library of Norway).

Regrets: Carryl M. Allardice, Françoise Boucheron, Elena Garcia-Puente Lillo, Esther Skaarup, Judith Szilvássy (honorary member).

Welcome and introduction

Hartmut Walravens welcomed the participants.

Approval of the Agenda

Two items were added to the agenda.

• Medium Term Programme
• Report from The Round Table on Newspapers

The Agenda was approved as follows:

• Welcome and introduction
• Approval of the Agenda
• Approval of the Minutes of the Bangkok Meeting
• Report from the Co-ordinating Board
• Report of the Chairman
• Report of the Information Co-ordinator
• Report from the Round Table on Newspapers
• Financial Report
• Programme for the Boston Conference
• Programme for the Glasgow Conference
• Projects
• Publications
• Medium Term Programme
• Miscellaneous

Approval of the Minutes of the Bangkok Meeting

The Minutes of the Bangkok Meeting were approved without any changes.

Report from the Co-ordinating Board

Training sessions organized on Saturday, August 12th, for Officers in order to improve the financial accountability of the Sections.

The common practice of charging registration for guest speakers was under discussion. It was considered unfair that fees have to be paid by the speakers.

Paper on Raising Quality Standards in IFLA Conference Papers (Appendix A), was considered not without justification, but difficult to comply with. The object of the proposal was to provoke a discussion.

Paper on IFLA's Professional Priorities (Appendix B), was another subject under discussion.

A prize for the best IFLA Newsletter of the year will be awarded.

Report of the Chairman

Hartmut Walravens gave a summary of the SC activities in Bangkok. The workshop Serials in Evolution : Programmes, Standards and Identification, well organised by Françoise Pellé, was very successful.

This year in Jerusalem it has been quite difficult to organise a full programme. Speakers have cancelled for different reasons. Serial Publications joint with RT on Newspapers will have an open session on Serials of the Near East. RT on Newspapers will have an open session on Digitization of Newspapers. Another open session will be held by Acquisition and Collection Development joint with Serial Publications on Models for Acquiring Electronic Resources.

We managed to publish two newsletters. The first one published in February, edited by Nina Khakhaleva, referred to the Bangkok meeting. The second published in June, edited by Elizabeth Gazdag, gave valuable information concerning the activities in the standard revision groups and introduced an overlook on serials interest groups. The Chair thanked both for their excellent work.

The Chair also thanked Karen Darling for updating the brochure on Serial Publications and Elizabeth Gazdag for completing the work. It was decided that the brochure should be translated in French, Russian and Spanish. Cathérine Omont and Nina Khakhaleva will take care of the French and Russian version respectively. Hartmut Walravens will contact Elena Garcia-Puente Lillo for the Spanish version.

Jean Farrington volunteered for the IFLA Booth on Monday August 15th , at 11:00-12:00.

Report of the Information Co-ordinator

Elizabeth Gazdag has made a revision of the page on Serial Publications on the IFLANET web site. The addresses have been updated and the latest editions of the Newsletter are now also available on-line. Elizabeth pointed out the lack of annual reports. It was decided that the Chair together with the Secretary and the Information Co-ordinator should prepare the annual report based on the newsletters.

Elizabeth will continue the outlook on serials interest groups all over the world and start a column about serials management. All members offered to make contributions.

Report from the Round Table on Newspapers

Hartmut Walravens gave a report on RT on Newspapers and the planned project of a model survey of newspaper collections. In Boston the RT on Newspapers will have an open meeting on Newspapers of the Americas.

Financial report

Agneta Holmenmark gave a report on finances. The SC bank account is now in Stockholm. There has been very little activity and the balance by June, 2000, is NLG 5 151. It was decided that the money should be used for projects during this year. Administrative expenses are supported by the officers' institutions.

Friday, August 18th , 2000

Attendants:

SC members: Marjorie Bloss, Karen Darling, Jean Farrington, Elizabeth Gazdag, Agneta Holmen-mark, Nina Khakhaleva, Cathérine Omont, Hartmut Walravens;

Ex officio member: Françoise Pellé;

Observers: Alex Bloss (University of Illinois, USA), Ruth Haas (Harvard University, USA), Helen Heinrich (Getty Research Library, USA), Zvi Muskal (United Nations Library, USA), Geir Rise (National Library of Norway).

Programme for the Boston Conference

Several members made proposals on a workshop on serials management. Marjorie Bloss suggested on having a session on electronic publishing from an access point of view. A proposed follow up to the Bangkok workshop on harmonization of cataloguing standards for serials was postponed to the Glasgow Conference.

It was decided to have an open session: With a click of a mouse from the bibliographic record to access, organised by Marjorie. It was also decided to have a workshop on serials management. Marjorie volunteered to prepare exposés and circulate it to the members.

The SC members should contact colleagues from NASIG and ALA Serials Section in order to organise a social gathering in connection with the workshop. Karen Darling, Jean Farrington and Marjorie Bloss will explore the possibilities.

The general view was that one important task for the Section is to be the co-ordinator of serials organisations all over the world. The Information Co-ordinator has already started an inventory.

Programme for the Glasgow Conference

The proposal on a workshop on harmonization of cataloguing standards for serials will be further investigated.

Projects

Hartmut Walravens reported on past and new projects. The Russian translation of the Basic Serials Management Handbook is completed. The next step to be taken is to get it published and Hartmut will explore the possibilities.

The Directory of the Union Catalogues has to be updated. This will be one of the future projects of the Section.

Another project agreed on is a survey for a Directory on articles databases and indexing services. Hartmut will prepare a description of the two future projects.

For reasons of time the last three items of the Agenda could not be discussed. It was decided that members attending the ISSN Directors' Meeting in Washington D.C., September 27-29 should hold an extraordinary SC Meeting on this occasion. All SC members were asked to look through the Medium Term Programme and circulate comments and proposals on the mailing list.

The SC members present in Washington revised the Medium Term Programme for 2002-2005 and developed the Action Plan for 2002-2003. The proposed text was distributed for comments to all SC members via electronic mail in October 2000. The document is to be finalised at the SC Meeting on the occasion of the IFLA Conference in Boston, 2001. The Chair took the advantage of visiting the Library of Congress to contact our Divisional Officer, Christopher Wright, Chair of Division V: Collections and Services, with the aim of completing the Section's financial report and to describe and submit the proposals for new projects in 2001. All statement forms were filled out in time.

List of Professional Programs of the IFLA Section on Serial Publications at the IFLA Conference in Jerusalem (+ availability of presented papers)

Tuesday, 15 August, 15:30-18:00
Open forum organized jointly by the Section on Acquisition and Collection Development and the Section on Serial Publications:

Theme: "Models for Acquiring Electronic Resources"

BAS SAVENIJE (Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands) and NATALIA GRYGIERCZYK:
Libraries without resources : towards personal collections
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla66/papers/015-134e.htm

DIANN RUSCH-FEJA (Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany):
Some consortial models for acquiring electronic resources in Germany http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla66/papers/167-134e.htm

Wednesday, 16 August, 08:30-11:00
Open forum by the Section on Serial Publications joint with the Round Table of Newspapres:

Theme: "Serials of the Near East"

JAIR DE MARCAS (University of Haifa Library, Haifa, Israel):
Aspects of serials management in Israeli academic libraries
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla66/papers/085-144e.htm

JOHANNES VALENTIN SCHWARZ (Berlin, Germany):
The Origins and the Development of German-Jewish Press in Germany till 1850 : Reflections on the Transformation of the German-Jewish Public Sphere in Bourgeois Society
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla66/papers/106-144e.htm

HARTMUT WALRAVENS (Bibliographic Services, Berlin State Library, Berlin, Germany):
The future of serials - realism or utopia?
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla66/papers/143-144e.htm

Wednesday, 16 August, 15:30-18:00
Open session organized by the Round Table of Newspapers:

Theme: "Digitization of Newspapers"

GRAHAM JEFCOATE (Early Printed Collections, British Library, UK):
The Digitisation of the Burney Collection of Early Newspapers at the British Library
(paper available from the Secretary of RTN)

YOSSI BARDOSH (Yedioth Technologies, Israel):
Digiting 60 years of "Yedioth Aharonoth"
(presentation, not available)

Programs planned for 2001, Boston

From Bibliographic Access to Content with a Click of a Mouse

Library users are changing their search and usage strategies, as more research information becomes available on the Web. It is now possible for a user, sitting at his or her home computer, to identify a journal article (bibliographic access) and to receive the contents of the desired article with a click of a mouse. We are witnessing the effect of these changes on the various players in our profession -Acquisitions and Cataloging Services, Reference and ILL librarians, the publishing and library vendor world.

In this programme, we will hear from speakers representing these areas with regard to the changes they have experienced and anticipate experiencing as the Web continues to make an impact on the way research is done.

Before and Now: How Technology is Changing Serials Management

Many events have affected the ways in which serials are handled in a library. These include the definition of the word "serial", automated check-in and claiming, the merging of cataloging rules for serials and monographs, the increase in serial subscription prices coupled with the proliferation of serial literature, reduction in technical services staffing, and of course, technology.

Speakers at this workshop will provide examples from their institutions describing the changes they have made to accommodate these factors. The audience will be encouraged to discuss examples of their own regarding how they have met the challenges of a rapidly changing serials environment.

Serials interest groups all over the world: an outlook

The North American Serials Interest Group, Inc. (NASIG) is an independent, all-volunteer organization promoting communication and sharing of ideas among all participants in the serials information chain - anyone working with or concerned about serial publications in any form. Our global membership includes serial publishers, librarians, subscription and system vendors, bibliographic utilities representatives, educators, database producers, binders, students and others who have selected NASIG as a key organization to address concerns that span diverse professional interests.

NASIG was founded in 1986 by a group of serialists who had attended one of the early United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG) conferences. These forward thinking men and women realized the critical need for a North American organization focusing solely on serials. Membership in NASIG is a bargain at any price but for only $25 U.S. annually, members receive a directory and quarterly newsletter plus access to NASIGWeb for a variety of resources. Due to the strong belief of inclusion rather than exclusion or more simply avoiding an "us versus them" mentality, NASIG does not accept institutional memberships, product demos or exhibits at its annual conferences. Instead, the conference encourages and supports an environment of openness, frankness, and breaking paradigms, fosters creativity, problem-solving and seeks ideas for "how can we improve the industry as a whole."

The same year NASIG was founded, its first conference was held on the campus of Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, with a few hundred in attendance. Membership now approaches 1300. A conference has been held annually ever since. Half of the total membership attends the annual conference with participants from all over the world. NASIG's conferences are vastly different from the usual library conferences.

Each conference is held on a university or college campus to help contain costs and attract the greatest number of participants possible. Plenaries, issue sessions and workshops are offered at each conference. The plenaries and issues sessions discuss the "big picture" of current and future trends in serials while the workshops are a more "hands on" or "how we solved this problem." Probably the biggest difference between a NASIG conference and any other library conference is the distinct lack of business attire! NASIG offers a very casual atmosphere where shorts, t-shirts, sandals and jeans are the norm at each conference. NASIG has certainly taken the notion of "Business Casual" to heart. We believe that casual dress offers a non-threatening, non-partisan atmosphere where serialists all along the information chain can discuss issues frankly and boldly. The proceedings of the annual conference are published as a monograph and as an issue of The Serials Librarian by Haworth Press.

The 2000 conference entitled: "Making Waves: New Serials Landscapes in a Sea of Change" was held June 22-25 at the University of California, San Diego. For the first time, NASIG will return to a site of a former conference for the 16th Annual Conference. The 2001 conference is being held at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, from May 23-26, 2001. Entitled: "NASIG 2001: a Serials Odyssey," plenaries and issues sessions will discuss the future of serials and explore the essence of scholarly communication in the 21st century.

NASIG has elected officers and an Executive Board comprised of: President, Vice-President-President-elect, Secretary, Treasurer, Past President and six Member-at-Large positions. Demonstrating the importance of diversity among the members of NASIG, the current Officers/Executive Board has representation from 8 different educational institutions, 2 vendors and one consortium officer. The true strength of NASIG, however, is the number of networking possibilities and volunteer efforts for our members. NASIG has 16 different committees in which members may be involved. Ten percent of the membership is represented at any one time on a NASIG committee and all committees show broad representation from the profit/non-profit sector. The Professional Liaison Committee is comprised of NASIG members who act as liaisons to other "peer" library groups. NASIG would be very pleased to have a liaison appointed from the IFLA Section on Serial Publications.

NASIG is particularly proud of its commitment to continuing education, scholarships and grants. We sponsor or co-sponsor numerous continuing education seminars or workshops across North America. We award conference grants to students in ALA-accredited programs in library and information science; sponsor conference attendance for those new to serials (librarian, publisher, vendor etc); provide graduate school scholarships to library and information science students with prior serials experience via the Fritz Schwartz Scholarship, and foster international communication in the serials world through the Marcia Tuttle International Grant. Further information on any or all of these grants/scholarships may be obtained through the NASIG website.

NASIG thanks the IFLA Section on Serials for providing us the opportunity to discuss NASIG and what we believe is a dynamic organization. If you would like more information on joining NASIG or finding out more about NASIG's programs and conferences, please point your browser to:

Australia

Introduction

The Australian Serials Special Interest Group (ASSIG) is part of the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), and has over 170 personal and institutional members. ASSIG aims to inform and educate students, librarians and information professionals, and bridge the gap between the national and international producer and end user of serials. By providing a forum for the exchange of ideas and solutions to serials problems ASSIG endeavours to embrace new technologies and advance serials into the 21st century.

The ASSIG office bearers are:

Jenni Jeremy, Convenor
Alfred Gans, Treasurer
Nathalie Schulz, Secretary

The ASSIG web page can be found at:

Activities

In July 2000 seventy people attended the ASSIG one day seminar in Brisbane, Queensland titled "Serials 2000 - Changes in the new millennium".

The first part of the seminar dealt with questions and concerns for serialists regarding the value added tax (the GST) that was introduced in Australia from July 1 2000. For the second part of the seminar ASSIG invited representatives from the four major print subscription agents in Australia (DA Information Services, Ebsco Australia, ISA-RoweCom Australia and Swets Blackwell) to speak about their organisations. This provided an excellent opportunity to learn about the recent changes in the serials industry and compare services.

The second activity for the year, "Serials 2005 - Future directions" was held immediately following the ALIA biennial conference in Canberra in October. The ASSIG committee was pleased that two international speakers, Albert Prior (Swets & Zietlinger) and J. Charles Germain (RoweCom) were willing to present their views on serials in the future. Additional speakers presented the Australian publisher and library viewpoints. In 2001 ASSIG hopes to conduct seminars or sponsor sessions at a number of the ALIA Sectional group conferences.

The United Kingdom

The inaugural conference of UKSG was held at York University in 1978 although the real origins of the group can be traced back to 1975 when John Merriman from Blackwell's invited a group of serials librarians to Oxford to "discuss and debate the major issues of the day". From this modest beginning, the UKSG has gone from strength to strength and the group now has some 600 institutional members, embracing all parties in the scholarly communication chain: publishers; subscription agents and other serial aggregators and intermediaries; librarians and information workers; and increasingly a host of other interested parties drawn to the group as result of the advent of electronic publishing. UKSG was conceived as, and has remained, an independent organisation funded entirely by membership subscriptions and modest surpluses from its conference and seminar activities. The membership fee for 2000 is £69.61 which includes a subscription to the group's journal "Serials" - published three times a year.

The group seeks to unite its membership in variety of different ways. The annual conference is probably the highlight of the year and - in recent years - has consistently attracted over 400 delegates. Topics for presentations and discussion at the 2001 annual conference at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh (2-4 April) include the recent cross-publisher initiative - CrossRef; PubMed Central; barriers to e-journal access; the National Electronic Site Licence Initiative - NESLI; and a keynote presentation from Lynne Brindley, the newly appointed Chief Executive of the British Library. The ability of the group to identify trends and developments in the industry has become its trade mark and each year UKSG hosts a number of one-day seminars and workshops on a variety of 'hot topics'. A recent seminar on the promotion and management of electronic journals attracted over 170 people!

The UKSG journal "Serials" provides members with both peer reviewed articles - often based upon conference and seminar presentations - as well as industry contacts and comment. "Serials" is now available online, via CatchWord, to UKSG members. There is also a growing amount of valuable content of the UKSG website:

The group has recently launched its own discussion list (lis-ejournals) designed to provide a talking shop for all parties grappling with the challenges of electronic journals.

Over the years UKSG has demonstrated an enthusiasm to collaborate with a range of other associated professional bodies. Early in 2000, the (UK) Library Association in collaboration with the UKSG published "The Serials Management Handbook : a practical guide to print and electronic serials management", edited by Tony Kidd and Lyndsay Rees-Jones. In 1994 the group joined forces with the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) to produce "Serial Publications : guidelines for good practice in publishing printed journals and other serial publications". These guidelines are currently under revision to include electronic journals.

The group has also been influential in helping other serials groups get started. It was largely as result of attending the 1984 annual conference that some US librarians formed the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) which now has over 1,000 members. In 1990, UKSG used its well-honed conference organising skills to put together the first European Serials Conference, held in The Netherlands. Today serials interest groups thrive in Germany, Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Australia and South Africa.

Editor of this issue: Elizabeth Gazdag, Information Co-ordinator for IFLA Section on Serial Publications