Rick Lugg

Cataloging: how to take a business approach

In this paper, ten standard business principles are considered in relation to library cataloging. These principles are intended to suggest methods that may decrease the time necessary for processing new library materials without adversely affecting access to the materials. This purely rational paradigm offers ideas about how to modify the cataloging philosophy and workflow, to reduce costs and improve patron service. By applying these basic principles, cataloging departments can accomplish traditional tasks more efficiently. Furthermore, the adoption of this approach will help to ensure the departments perceived value and relevance by freeing catalogers to focus more fully on the description and access of electronic resources.

E-book basics

This article reviews the various e‐book reading experiences, including dedicated reading devices; PDA‐ and PC‐based readers, Web readers, and the related issues of print on demand. Questions of format, emerging standards, and rights management solutions are described in general terms, with an eye toward important areas of divergence. The size and potential of the e‐book market is considered, in light of traditional publisher initiatives, independent e‐publishing and digital distribution. Also, important new mediators deserve attention as they struggle to niche themselves in this emerging industry.

Future Tense -- The Disapproval Plan: Rules-Based Weeding & Storage Decisions

Credit where credit is due. Much as we’d like to claim to have originated the phrase “disapproval plan,” it happened like this. During a workflow analysis project at Davidson College, R2 had written this recommendation: “Adopt a rules-based approach to weeding monographs.” In explaining it, we suggested that the Library collaborate with teaching faculty (who have the final say on selection and de-selection at Davidson) to define categories of books that could be withdrawn without title-by-title review, enabling a batch approach to some weeding decisions. As we elaborated on the idea for Jill Gremmels, Director of the library at Davidson, we characterized it as a sort of “reverse approval plan.” To which she replied with a laugh, “Oh, you mean a disapproval plan!” We know a good moniker when we hear one. Beyond its excellent (if slightly Puritanical-sounding) name, the disapproval plan is one of those ideas whose power seems immediately obvious. In our September “Future Tense” column in Against the Grain, we outlined the reasons that now is the time to usher in a Golden Age of Weeding. In this article, we present a new technique that R2 is developing to hasten this golden age along. While the full systems and service package we envision will actually be called Sustainable Collections Service (SCS), parts of it will remain fondly known as the “disapproval plan.” R2 believes that many elements of approval plan profiling can be adapted to much-needed de-selection and de-accessioning processes. As with selection, these techniques can help make de-selection more efficient while assuring that collection integrity is maintained.

The real cost of ILS ownership

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to bring awareness to all factors that impact on the cost of an integrated library system (ILS).Design/methodology/approach – Using a total cost of ownership approach, a bigger view of all the factors impacting on cost is explored.Findings – The paper finds that many libraries focus entirely on direct costs when selecting a new ILS, rather than factoring in staff time and other long‐term costs that will be associated with choosing a system.Originality/value – When the direct and indirect costs are considered, systems that have higher initial costs may be cheaper to own through their entire lifespan than other, seemingly cheaper, products.

I, User -- Task-Based Strategic Planning: Changing Libraries Through Workflow Analysis

Strategic planning often conjures gloomy images for library managers: retreat room walls plastered with flip-chart pages; directors grandly drawing visions of the future or at least their futures; brainstorming the day away as backlogs mount back at the ranch; environmental scans delirious with developments; and, inevitably, a plan so ambitious and divorced from real work that no one actually refers to it again until it’s time to repeat the process.

The Amazon Effect, Virtual Approval Plans, and the Changing Nature of Book Selection

Although the phrase sounds more like the title of a Robert Ludlum thriller than an actual phenomenon, the Amazon Effect echoes through the working days of all of us who deal with books and information: librarians, publishers, and vendors. From its inception, Amazon used the Web to expand the fundamentals of retail bookselling, bringing to readers a vast selection of titles and previously unknown levels of convenience. Because of its prominence in the media and mass market, Amazon has also influenced user expectations for library services: i.e., why doesn’t the library’s OPAC look more like Amazon.com?