draw your own conclusions

the poll is open until october 16 at 9 AM.  http://polldaddy.com/poll/3929441/ here’s a screen shot of the results so far.
libraries and cardigans

Posted in library, titter | Comments Off on draw your own conclusions

the use of our non-current print journal collection is waning: proof provided

Retrieval requests of non-current journal articles from storage

Over the last six fiscal years requests for non-current journal articles retrieved from storage has dropped significantly.  The decline is most dramatic in the number of requests LMU patrons made: from 470 in FY2004-05 to 206 in FY2008-09.  The decline is also evident in the number of requests to fulfill interlibrary lending requests, though less dramatic: from 364 in FY2004-05 to 173 in FY2008-09.  It is clear that patrons overall are demanding less of our print collection.

* It is not yet known how retrieval requests for non-current journal articles will be affected by having that collection now stored locally (as of FY2009-10) instead of off-site.  As the collection was moved from off-site storage to in the basement storage area there was a six-month period when requests for journals were not filled.  In addition, as the collection moved on site the methods used to gather statistics changed.  To that end, the FY2009-10 period represented in the above graph is an estimate and only represents a six-month period.

Posted in library, management, usage statistics | 3 Comments

words in library conference presentation titles that ensure i won’t be in the audience:

wrangling

herding

cats

woes

2.0

adventures

what words make you twitchy?  add them in a comment below

Posted in library, titter | 1 Comment

a thorough article on how to review a manuscript

Rosenfeld, R. M. (2010). How to review journal manuscripts. Otolaryngol. Head Neck Surg., 142(4), 472-486. http://www.editorialmanager.com/otohns/accounts/Howtoreview.pdf

In answering the question of how much time to devote to performing a review, on p.473 he notes that, “Reviewers should not, however, devote excessive time, because spending more than three hours, on average, does not increase review quality as rated by editors and authors.”

Wondering about what to do with the awful typos or poor grammar? He suggests on p.483 that, “In general, the reviewer should not waste his or her time with extensive language corrections, which are the responsibility of the copy editors once a manuscript is accepted.” [original author’s emphasis]

This article presents a clear overview of the components of a manuscript review and offers suggestions for how to provide specific feedback to both the author and editor.

Highly recommend.

thanks to @qualintitative for alerting me to this!

Posted in articles i'm reading | Comments Off on a thorough article on how to review a manuscript

Disappearing Jobs: Staffing Implications for Print Serials Management

Sarah Glasser, Disappearing Jobs: Staffing Implications for Print Serials Management, Serials Review, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 15 September 2010, ISSN 0098-7913, DOI: 10.1016/j.serrev.2010.06.002.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6W63-511BPHK-1/2/c4931d6dd7aa4fb4e6908c0abbab9ae6)

I find the most compelling piece of this article to be the emphasis in the author’s Literature Review section on the required change in quality of staff for tasks related to electronic resources. She quotes Montgomery, who reports that print journal tasks are accomplished via the “least-skilled and lowest-paid workers,” and that electronic resources tasks need “detail-oriented support staff who have advanced computer skills and who can adjust to continuous changes in procedures and methods….” I don’t think we have made this shift evident to library management; we’ve been approaching the transition of existing staff from print to electronic format-related tasks as a training issue. It may be a training issue at some level, but the requirements of the new job mean that some existing staff won’t make the cut.

Posted in articles i'm reading | 1 Comment