Showing papers on "Resource Description and Access published in 1973"

The National Program for Acquisitions and Cataloging: Its impact on University Libraries

Abstract: The Library of Congress National Program for Acquisitions and Cataloging has been in operation since 1966. It seemed timely to conduct a fact-finding study to examine the effects of this program on the organization of bibliographic activities in a selected group of university libraries. This report will attempt to prove that the program has had a significant impact on these libraries. With budget cuts experienced by most libraries in recent years, there is no doubt that this program has contributed a great deal towards reducing cataloging costs and increasing bibliographic compatibility with the Library of Congress.

The Evaluation of Campus Library Document Delivery Service

Abstract: A campus delivery service is one way to increase accessibility of library materials. This report provides an overview of such a service, evaluates its performance, notes the economic implications, and concludes that the service can solve some of the problems of decentralized collections.BRARIES as service agencies? It is a question for which there are no. pat answers. Many factors can affect service: the geographical organization of a campus, the organization of the library system, the attitudes of the teaching faculty, library faculty and the administration, the size of the collection. However, it is probably safe to assume that most university libraries are under-utilized. Although the library is often labeled the heart of a university, it is more likely to function as an instructional appendage. Do researchers turn to the library when they need information? It is well known that many researchers have developed alternate communication channels which for them are more responsive. In general, researchers secure information from the sources most convenient to them. In 1963 Slater found that the distance from a researcher's office to his technical library influenced his use of that library. 1 Allen and Ros-enberg found that information channels are selected on the basis of ease of use and accessibility rather than on the. amount of information those channels are expected to generate. 2 Robert Tay-lor has stated that a system which provides easier access, specifically physical convenience, will be more effective than a system which is concerned only with the quality of the scheme of subject organization .3 C. Walter Stone suggested that in the long run it may prove more effective and efficient to move information to people rather than move people to information. 4 If ease and convenience are such potent influences on a user's behavior, then why not develop mechanisms to improve the ease to which a library's rich resources can be accessed? A campus delivery service is one way to increase the accessibility of documents. A delivery service could enable a faculty member to telephone from his office for a specific item. The library could respond by retrieving the item from the stacks, checking it out, and delivering it either to the requestor's departmental office or directly to his office. This paper analyzes a document delivery service introduced at the University of Colorado; who used it, why it was used, the level of performance achieved, and the attitudes of users toward …