Stephen M. Brooks's blog

I gave a talk on Friday at the Joyner Paraprofessional Conference, titled “From Paraprofessional to Professional: Tips for Making the Transition in Technical Services.” This was the ninth straight year that Joyner Library at East Carolina University has hosted the paraprofessional conference and my first year attending.

The paraprofessional conference is the only one of its kind in North Carolina; by my very rough estimate, about 100 people attended. ECU is quiet during the intersession and the conference takes over the library; presentations are in open spaces, Technical Services and other parts of the library. This year's theme was “Cyborgs in the Stacks.” The morning schedule included a networking breakfast, keynote address and two sessions of breakout talks, with plenty of time in-between sessions for finding restrooms or chatting.

Last week I posted about how library book vendors have had to change their sales models to accommodate e-books. Grounded in book sales, book vendors' databases are structured around the book in all its formats: paper, hardcover and various e-versions, which makes this transition logical. This week I incorporate subscription vendors' services, which are germane to the e-book question, and ponder who is better positioned to assist libraries with their e-book management.

At least seven years ago, I remember one full-service library book vendor encouraging libraries to not to fear e-books and announcing that their goal was to make e-book purchasing work like print book purchasing: they aimed to integrate the processes of e-book provision with their already well-established print book sales methods. Since that time, e-books have been well integrated into the same purchasing processes libraries use for print books: approval plans, firm orders and standing orders work well title-by-title. However, e-books give publishers other sales workstreams and pricing models that go outside the routines that have been in place for print books. This is the first of two posts looking at some challenges for book vendors in selling e-books to libraries.

Acquisitions departments in U.S. public universities and colleges are getting busy about this time of year. Most of us are on a fiscal year cycle, which ends June 30. If we receive state allocations for our library resources, they need to be spent by June 30. I haven't been in a situation in which my library was unable to spend its money by the end of the fiscal year; I assume it would be disastrous and very difficult to explain to the provost why, given the seemingly infinite number of scholarly resources available for purchase, we couldn't spend the money! Nonetheless, spending all of the money—and no more!—requires communication, cooperation and flexibility.

I'm preparing for a speaking engagement at the annual conference sponsored by the North Carolina Library Paraprofessional Association next month, in which I will offer observations, perspective and advice about making a career change from paraprofessional to professional library worker. My library experience has chiefly been in technical services, so I will focus on the differences between working as a paraprofessional and professional in library technical services, but I can also talk generally about the subtle or not-so-subtle differences between paraprofessional and professional roles in library work.

Happy news from UNC’s libraries: we’re going all-digital! April brings springtime, which is a time of dramatic change and new life, and the perfect time to make such an announcement. Fools’ conventions have imprisoned academic librarians in the print realm for too long, keeping our users separated from the content they require on our shelves not only by antiquated, unsearchable formats, but also by requiring library staff to be on hand, in the moment, for the content even to be accessible. Day or night, our electronic resources are available to researchers far and wide, regardless of their personal schedules or physical locations.

In the February 2012 issue of Against the Grain, LIS professor at Wayne State University Bob Holley's op ed “Demise of Traditional Collection Development” targets patron-driven acquisitions and “just-in-time” purchasing, which undermine the value of “core book selection activities: … selecting from book reviews, acquiring these materials, and preserving them.”

Have I mentioned before that I love living in North Carolina? Spring arrived a couple weeks early this year, the NCAA tournament is the hottest topic wherever I go and library conferences abound! Five universities in the state—three of which are ALA-accredited—offer master's degrees in library science, so sponsorship of and support for professional development are significant. Last Friday, I attended the 21st annual North Carolina Serials Conference, which is sponsored by the School of Library and Information Sciences at North Carolina Central University and met in Chapel Hill.

I mentioned last month that Random House would raise e-book prices on March 1. It turns out that the perpetual access, one user at a time model Random House favors is costing in the neighborhood of triple the hardcover price. Bobbi Newman gave a few examples over at Librarian by Day, in which Random House's pricing model for this access seems to decrease over time, coinciding with and similar to a book's availability in hardcover, then eventually in paperback.

It seems that this news is resonating most loudly in the public library sector, of library sectors in the United States. How does this price change affect collection development in the public library market? What does it say about the value of public libraries? I have far more questions than answers, but hear me out.

Purchasing cards (“p-cards”) are credit cards that are issued in individual staff members' names, but whose bills the University pays. When the University issues p-cards to staff in our department, they set a single day limit and a monthly limit on each person's card. Sometimes, one staff's limit is too low and another staff member has to fill in for a specific purchase. P-cards give our library a lot of flexibility in buying library resources, but using them involves staff assuming some risk, for example, of identity theft and requires more work than standard acquisitions for the Monographic Services and Accounting departments of the library.