HOC ~'- I December4 10, 1974 jngtf SERIAL HOLDINGS LIST A revised edition of the handy Serial Holdings list is due out in the new year. Gerry Dobbin, Systems and Information Science Librarian, who chaired the revision committee, gives this account of the project: As eoan as the 1972 edition of the UBC Library Serial Holdings was distributed early in 1973» it received an enthusiastic welcome, and indeed it has been heavily used ever since, by both staff and students. However, even before the new pages had lost their crispness, public service staff were becoming aware of its serious limitations, in breadth of coverage as well as in accuracy of detail. By May 1975* a small committee had investigated many complaints and suggestions, and laid out a plan of action. It is doubtful if any project the Library has ever undertaken (except the counting of the book collection in the early 1950fs) has involved euch a large percentage of the staff. While the heaviest burden obviously fell on the Serials Division, virtually all parts of the system contributed help in one form or another. Only one staff member was assigned to the project full-time; the whole project was directed by a committee made up of Graham Elliston, Matt Hartman, Steve Johnson, Bill Parker, Ann Turner (replacing Linda Joe), and chaired by Gerry Dobbin. The •shoe-string1 approach seems to have produced almost incredible results, as will be clear in the next edition of the list. What was actually planned? And how nearly was each goal reached? 1. Location of abstracts, indexes, etc. in reference divisions was incorrect in many cases in the 1972 list. These errors have been identified, and changes made in the machine record. 2. Government serials wixh distinctive titles. Kany heavily-used serials, with distinctive titles, are actually government publications, but the average user, and many staff, never think of them as such. Following a sustained effort by Kary Lubbe, 825 of these vilj. in future have short entries under title, giving call number, location of one set, and a note directing users to Government Publications for additional assistance. 3. Backfiles. If a backfile is either complete, or a decision has been made not to add to it any further, Graham Elliston has made the necessary additions and changed .the machine records. This has involved correcting the holdings for over 1200 titles. ? 4. Storage. Lists from the Circulation and Catalogue Divisions have been used to correct the record to show serial volumes in storage. This was handled by Ann Tnrner, and affected about 250 titles. 5* Microforms. Eany of these were not previously accessible to users through any public record. To date, Steve Johnson has added over 1350 completely new titles to the record; the final total will be in the neighbourhood of 2000 titles. &• Titles omitted from the 1972 edition. Countless volunteers, conscripts, and student assistants dredged up 20,COO possible candidates in the first stage of this job. The librarian in charge reviewed these individually, and whittled them down to a mere 13»000. Some of these were extracted as duplicates, others as government publications, others as being outside the scope of the listing, but even so 8850 new titles have been added to the machine record already; the final total may be expected to top 9000. ?• Error correction. It is estimated that well over 2000 errors, mainly in call numbers or locations, have teen caught and fixed. SHORTCOMINGS: Now that we have added some 13,000 new entries, and all those corrections, where will the next edition still fall below what we would like to have? *♦ It will not include any government documents, except for those in Woodward and those 825 titles. fc» Holdings information about individual titles has not been updated, except for Graham's 1200 back- files. If the record says we have a volume, we almost certainly do, but if a particular volume is omitted from the holdings, staff uill still have to check the location file before directing users to the Interlibrary Loan Division. ©• Most of the newly added entries are brief, with the bibliographic history of the publication left out. Staff will still need to refer to the Union List of Serials or some other source for those facts. fl. Monographic series, particularly those which are separately catalogued and classified, are all too often omitted completely• To remedy this, a check of all salmon-coloured cards in the Authority Pile vould be needed, and staff has not been available on that scale. n Bummary, the 1975 edition will be far from perfect, but it will be much more complete and considerably •ore accurate than its predecessor. -2- NEW STAFF ROOM COMMITTEE The following people have volunteered to be on the new staff room committee. Joan Tonn 3115 Joan Smith 32Ul Ann MacKenzie 3115 Janice Noel 32Ul Jane Prior 3115 Regina Barzynska 32Ul Linda Burkhart 3115 If you have any suggestions or complaints, please submit them in writing to any of us, j not Mrs. Cosar, and these will be discussed at future meetings. Due to an increasing amount of theft in the coffee room, the coffee service will not be I provided between the hours of U:00 p.m. and 8:15 a.m. People who want coffee after hours should use the vending machines downstairs or bring their own. Once again it is time to plan the annual Xmas party, and we are open to any suggestions,. Please give us any ideas of what you want. To include most people, we have decided that thef best day for the party will be on Thursday Dec. 19, 1971*. RECLASSIFICATIONS The Library has received the following notice from R.J. Bell, University Personnel Officer: Agreement has now been reached between the University and the Union to proceed with classification evaluation for all requests submitted prior to September 30th, 1974. As there are a significant number of cases to deal with, it will likely be a few weeks longer before the results can be released. Concurrent with these evaluations on specific jobs, a joint Standing Committee composed of University and Union representatives are meeting to review the Job Classification procedure. We realize that many individuals have been affected by these unavoidable delays but are confident that we can return to a more normal kind of operation in the foreseeable future. KB 623 P854 C3 197l/fad/lo/25ao^^^ \ QKZCn D*T£ - *UMB£* rush | kan FtCASt iNCtUCt OUR O.DM HCMBf • W *U COftfttSFOMDCNCt £ Pruho, Bruno, 1915- Bruno Pruno. Kilano, Cavour, 1971 FREE LITERATURE SEARCHES Through our membership in the Canadian Consortium for Social Research, we are entitl^ to 200 free literature searches of the following bibliographic tapes held at the Institute for Behavioural Research, York University: ERIC Journal Resume Master File (Jan. 19^9 *°l present); Psychological Abstracts (1970 to present); Social Science Journal File (75 Nor*! American, including 27 Canadian periodicals, for 1968 to date). To the above will shortly be added the following: Canadian Business and Systems In#1 Canadian Social Science Indexing System; Communications Research File. Attempts are ais°l being made to add: Scoiological Abstracts. Searches are made on the author, title, key*I word and summary fields. For a list of journals, or a profile blank, or to see print-ou I resulting from a search, please contact Laine Ruus, Social Sciences Division (local 2725''! T.AMTJAGES IN THE LIBRARY One of the most necessary, most crucial skills in this 0r any academic library is language proficiency. To property support research, university libraries must have staff ©embers who can handle a wide variety of languages. Here at KJBC, we1re reasonably well provided with linguists...one advantage (among many, no doubt) of being Canadian; what with French-speakers from back East, and so many immigrants, the labour pool all but overflows with people whose native language isnft English. Gathered below are some comments by and about linguists the rosetta stone and languages in the Library: how languages are used a work; seu^iondSn^6 Brit,sh Mu" some ways in vrhich using languages at work is important to the people who do it; and some ideas on how to preserve and perhaps even develop this valuable resource skill. Haria Horvath, Humanities Division, writes: Here is an example of how I use languages: Take a patron who wants the origin of an English word. The Oxford Snplish Dictionary refers him to Du Cange's Latin dictionary. This explains Latin words all right - but it does so in Latin. It's not impossible to translate this, but it's a long entry, and the patron's girlfriend is waiting. So I take the natron through a shorter route, to a great-grandchild of Du Ganger the Glossaire Francois...at least he'll have a language "close to Latin"...indeed, a "Canadian language". At this point, the patron declares that he isn't one of those darned Ottawa bilin^ualists. O.k., so we try the word in Tobler-Lcrr-stzsch, a Swiss dictionary which explains French words in good German. But the chap has his eye on the doorway and his pretty girlfriend, and he protests. Finally, I decide to take a real shortcut...1 cheat; I use my good old Calepinus dictionary of Kungarian-Latin and, translating myself, I blurt out the sought word in rhglish. HSlene Redding, Sedgewick, writes: Possessing a second language (in my case French) is definitely an asset in the Library, and it can make for some interesting situations. I become very frustrated at times and fear that I will lose my French because I rarely get to use it when helping students'throughout the year at the Sedgewick reference des.-c. The interesting experiences I spoXe of before are ones that most often take place in the summer, when exchange programs between B.C. and Quebec take place. Speaking with and helping these students has helped me maintain some ever-decreasing ethnic ties and has led to rewarding encounters. }§r only regret in having a second language is not being able to use it often enough. Zorka Srejic, LC Searching, writes: The term "linguist" is perhaps misused at the UBC Library in that it tends to refer to every foreigner who speaks, naturally, his or her own native language and - more or less - an intelligible English. "Linguist" - as defined in dictionaries - is a person skilled in languages, a master of language. I would expand this definition, in a university context, to include knowledge of some appropriate background (literature, for example). Considering this definition, I would say that our linguists, here in the Library, are not appreciated enough, and are not used effectively; or,our place in the whole system is not yet properly established. The usual requirement for LC Searching work is a knowledge of one or more foreign languages.' For successful work in our division, languages are almost essential. We U3e our specialisations in our jobs, and occasionally, in various degrees, our skills are used by other Technical Services staff. With this in mind, I thin* a greater recognition of the linguists in this Library is needed. Their language, ability and their other unique areas of knowledge should be respected. They should be seen as intellectuals educated in different cultures. And more opportunities should be found for inter-divisional and campus-wide use and exchange of these specialised skills. This would add further dimensions to the work of many linguists and expand the resource abilities of the whole library system. Jack Mcintosh, Bibliography, writes: Foreign language knowledge is an important library resource which often saves much staff time and effort in solving problems of identifying, locating, or providing clues as to the contents of publications. However, spread throughout the library system as they are, language skills are often unrelated to one's specific position or location. For this reason, it mi^ht be a good idea to extend the information sheet linguists Available In or For Consultation Sy the Catalogue Division to the whole system, and to have it revised regularly. And Margaret Pahr, Original Cataloguing, writes: I would like to make a plea for librarians to be allowed study leave in order to learn foreign languages. * *»© European educational system stresses foreign language study, in contrast to the Canadian system, which gives the European great advantages in this area. There is no doubt in ay mind that a knowledge of languages is especially useful to the cataloguing librar- **&• The cataloguer constantly handles books in a variety of languages or can be faced with bibliographies, which offer valuable clues for cataloguing, containing information in many languages. Indeed, there are many aspects of library work where language skills are useful, and so I feel that this is a legitimate reason for Son» type of study leave. 'Why not join Ivan Illich in Cuernavaca for three months and learn Spanish? MESSINESS AND PROPRIETARY RIGHTS There has been a reduction in the size of the janitorial staff, with the result that standards of cleanliness have declined. The following message has been received from J4p4 McLean, University Director of Personnel: The Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 116 have complained that certain persons in the Library have been carrying out duties which were normally done by members of their union. The matter has become particularly important to them at this time because as you may be aware, the University has been forced to reduce staff and this action has at the moment affected the service workers particularly. The items which they mentioned specifically were "the emptying of waste baskets" and "general cleaning up". We have told the representatives of Union 116 that we will bring this matter to the attention of the Library staff and ask their cooperation. It would be appreciated if you would advise those concerned. ANNOUNCEMENTS WAJTT5D The following out-of-orint items are needed to complete the Library's holdings: B.C. KOTORIST. Vol. 9 no. 2 (1970), and vol. 10 no. 2 (1971). CANADIAN CCUNSP.LLCH. (Vancouver) vol. 7 no.3 0973). EMERGENCY LIBRARIAN, (v.'inniteg) vol. 1 nos. 1-3 (1973-74). • JOURNAL C7 BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION. (Vancouver) vol. 4 no. 1 (1973). SOLSIL DE* C0L0K3IE. (Vancouver) vol. 3 nos. 10,23 (July 1970, Kay 1971). Contact Graham Elliston, local 2304, if you can supply any of then. The Library will be eternally grateful. ALSO WANTED For the Library "Experiment in Staff Participation in Planning & Management": "...any comments, suggestions, or proposals relating to resource allocation, policies or procedures within the following broad areas - collections; public services; technical services; systems; personnel services (anything not covered by contract); buildings and environment; equipnent." Submissions, in writing, to go to division and branch heads, and/or the University Librarian. PENCIL STUBS Don't throw them out! Bring them to the Hain Information Desk. ..library users sometimes need something to j write with. UFVfARD MOBILITY The following recruitment notices have been received recently by the Library. For more complete job descriptions and contact addresses, get in touch with Michael Kasper in the I & 0 Division, local 2076. Colorado State University. Port Collins. Associate Director of Libraries. (Letter dated: November 11). Concordia University. Montreal. Reference Librarian, Science & Engineering Library, (undated; recent). Cornell University. Ithaca, New York. Acquisitions Librarian. (October 31). University of North Carolina. Chapel Kill. Chief 3ibliograoher. (Deadline: January 15, 1975). University of Saskatchewan. Saskatoon. Associate Librarian. (Letter dated: November 27). A LIST OF THE MOST DIFFICULT PROPER NAMES MENTIONED IN THE INDEX WITH THEIR PRONUNCIATION NEW APPOINTMENTS, PROMOTIONS, TRANSFERS & RESIGNATIONS. NEW APPOINTMENTS Ann Harris L.A.I Law Library PROMOTIONS m Marg Massey Sec.II Serials to Clerk III Admin. Janet Young Sec.I Admin, to Sec.II Serials Betty Guilfayle L.A.II Wd to L.A.Ill Sedg. TRANSFERS Sedg re. r §098 1 RESIGNATIONS Ruth Howland L.A.Ill Sedg if536 to L.A.Ill Linda Ma L.A.Ill A.S. to L.A.Ill WdWd Maryse L'Abbe L.A.I Photocopy to L.A.I CL Laura MacDonald L.A.J. Circ. Frances Montini L.A.Ill Music Christina Synowski L.A.II Social Work Lee Ann Cohen L.A.I Circ.