BOOK REVIEWS
Vicki Toy-Smith, Column Editor
NASIG 2001: A Serials Odyssey: Proceedings of the North American Serials
Interest Group, Inc. 16th Annual Conference, May 23-26, 2001,
Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas
Edited by Susan L. Scheiberg and Shelley Neville
Dazzling, challenging, and exciting are how we feel about serials in the Internet era. In the current information environment, we constantly find ourselves having to deal with rapid changes, and yet struggling to put on our radar screens the new events that occur everyday. As Phillipp Neie and Heather Steele, presenters of a concurrent session at NASIG 2001, put it, we "must run constantly faster to try to stay in the same place."
Annual NASIG conferences are no doubt among the best venues for serialists to share experiences, learn new ideas, and get updated on new trends, so they can run faster. The 2001 meeting offered two pre-conference programs, three plenary sessions, eight concurrent sessions, twenty-four workshops, and twelve poster sessions. The topics covered in these programs display a whole spectrum of serials issues--from licensing to providing access, from various e-serials related subjects to jump starting one’s career, and from classical management issues to futuristic outlook.
Licensing and providing access were two key points of the conference. One pre-conference program, two concurrent sessions, and two workshops were devoted to various aspects of licensing, including basic points of licensing, new pricing models for licensing, a report on the National Electronic Site License Initiative (NESLI) in UK, licensing management at the consortial and local levels, and outsourcing electronic journal licensing and negotiation.
A total of five workshops offered local solutions to providing access to electronic journals. California State University, Northridge shared their experiences of batch-loading vendor provided MARC records for aggregated electronic journals into OPAC using the single record approach. Methodist College offered the methods and techniques to empower non-professional staff to create and maintain journal holdings lists on Websites. Providing full-text reference linking to patrons, a subsidized self-mediated article ordering system at McGill University, and creating journals Web pages on the fly from the online catalog at Miami University all provided insights into "taming the aggregators."
Several other e-serials related subjects were also discussed in a number of workshops. These subjects include cataloging Web resources on the OCLC-CORC, e-serials’ impact on public service, gathering statistics about e-serials, and using the ONIX standard to manage serials. The conference participants were also reminded to examine the functions of library consortia, to check the contents of e-journals before canceling the paper, to plan and cooperate well before and after library system migration, and to remember the needs of the patrons with disabilities when designing Web pages. The development of the digital Journal of Social Structure, a cooperative endeavor between Carnegie Mellon University faculty and library staff, was also presented at a workshop.
A number of presenters shared their insights into how to jump start one’s career in library and information science. The topics covered include getting published, giving an effective presentation, and professional networking. Classical management issues were also tackled at several workshops, such as the art of claiming, dealing with difficult people at work, and serials staffing for the 21st century. In addition, two libraries shared their experiences of building technical services department Websites. A report on the CONSER Publication Pattern Initiative was also presented.
Looking into the future--there was a lot said about it. All the three plenary sessions focused on the future--the future of scholarly publications and the future students and researchers who will read these publications. Problems of current scholarly communication process were addressed, and solutions for improvement were suggested. America’s next generation, nicknamed "Generation Y," was portrayed vividly, and their impact on higher education was discussed and presented as academic challenges. Other futuristic topics include the "sense-making" role of the digital librarian, the new roles of subscription agents, the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) and fair use, three-dimensional serials and content management on the Web, and the significance of XML for library services. All the above-listed five topics were presented at concurrent sessions.
Last but not the least, the conference participants were treated with a cultural perspective from Mexico. The presenter of this concurrent session told the story of Mexican serials--their production, distribution, and how to acquire them.
Informational and thought provoking, NASIG 2001: A Serials Odyssey clearly has something for everyone. To recommend this book, I would like to echo Tony Stankus, "Making Sense of Serials" columnist, Technicalities, who wrote, "Once again, this volume is proof that WHEN NASIG TALKS, SERIALISTS EVERYWHERE SHOULD LISTEN."
Published in 2002 by: Haworth Information Press, Binghamton, New York. (344 p.) ISBN: 0-7890-1928-0 ($49.95); 0-7890-1929-9 (pbk. - $34.95) Co-published simultaneously as The Serials Librarian, Vol. 42, Nos. 1/2 and 3/4, 2002.
Reviewed by Paoshan Yue
Electronic Resources Access Librarian
University of Nevada, Reno
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Last updated: September 3, 2003
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