BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS
staff members, library addresses and telephone numbers, and photocopying policies. For many of these hospital librarians this meant going to their administrators and developing written library policies. The gathering of this information was difficult, but by August 1975 all the serials data were processed and the policy statements were written and compiled. By September 18 the first run of the CAHSL Union List of Serials was produced and taken to the printer in order to meet the October deadline for a special meeting of CAHSL. In less than six months, from April to September, the CAHSL Union List of Serials had come into existence. While the first edition is not without error, the subsequent yearly updates will see the corrections made and the list expanded to include more health sciences libraries in the state. INDIVIDUAL SERVICES Another benefit of the CAHSL Union List of Serials is the easy capability of computer-producing individual hospital serials holdings lists and regional or consortium lists on a monthly, quarterly, semiannual, or annual basis. While a majority of the libraries have subscribed to a semiannual list, other libraries are interested in more frequent printouts. Consortium or regional groups have the benefit of obtaining multiple copies of their holdings for about three dollars per copy (this is a five-part copy at about fifteen dollars, split by five hospitals). The shared cost would depend on the size of the consortium or the number of hospitals in a specific region. The librarians have been urged to send in changes in their holdings on a continous basis, with specified deadlines set up for semiannual and quarterly updates. With individual printouts planned, the yearly updates for the CAHSL list will not be a major project but merely a continuation of an ongoing project. CONCLUSION The CAHSL Union List of Serials has two benefits: the first is to provide the membership with a yearly union list of serials that is easily updated, quickly printed, and low in cost. The second benefit is less tangible than a physical list but just as real: the cooperation (and esprit de corps) of the health sciences librarians in getting a major job done in such a short time. With this list there will come other benefits, such as the ability to plan cooperative acquisitions of journals and to
328
create reciprocal photocopying policies, and
budget sharing. Automated union lists of serials are not unique, and in fact they are too numerous to list. Unfortunately such lists are usually reserved for the larger libraries, and are not found in the environs of the 75-100-bed hospital because of cost and lack of facilities. The CAHSL list could not have been produced with such little expense or so quickly without the assistance of the University of Connecticut Health Center Library. However, the Health Center Library feels that by offering such assistance, it is playing an active and supportive role in the biomedical communications network. Such cooperation among health sciences libraries is necessary for good health-care systems and information delivery in any state.
CATLINE: Use and Costs at the Health Sciences Library, University of California, Davis BY DAVID C. ANDERSON, Technical Services Librarian Health Sciences Library University of California, Davis
THE
Health Sciences Library (HSL) of the University of California, Davis, uses a cataloging procedure which combines aspects of both Library of Congress (LC) and National Library of Medicine (NLM) practices. HSL's policies regarding choice and form of entry and bibliographic description follow LC; classification and subject headings are based on NLM. Because HSL has combined these cataloging practices, retrieval of both LC and NLM catalog copy on a timely basis has always been important. Without LC and NLM copy, more titles would require original cataloging locally, costing more time and money. (Table 1 indicates sources of catalog copy information in the HSL for 1974/75). Because CATLINE provides information both before publication, for Cataloging-In-Publication materials, and soon after publication, its use is especially important. Before CATLINE was available on-line through the NLM, HSL staff used the monthly and cumulated Current Catalog and Current Catalog Proof Sheets to find and retrieve NLM copy. HSL copies only part of the information from the printed catalogs: the date of the printed Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(3)July 1976
BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS
TABLE I CATALOG OUTPUT AND SOURCES OF INFORMATION, 1974/75
Type of
Monographs Serials Analytics Total
Number 3297 329 752 4378
With LC and NLM copy
With LC
With NLM
copy only
copy only
Without any copy
________any_cop
Number
Percent
Number
Percent
Number
Percent
2443 128 472 3043
74.1 38.9 62.8 69.5
324 10 121
9.8 3.0 16.1 10.4
357 111 67
10.8 33.7 8.9 12.2
455
catalog consulted, the call number for the desired item, and the subject headings. These portions of the cataloging copy complement what is available from LC copy. When we first began to use CATLINE in September 1973, no manual of CATLINE search methods was available to us. The staff at HSL who were trained in MEDLINE search techniques taught us search methods applicable to our needs. We also sought help from the regional medical library. And at times, we learned by serendipity. We were not necessarily sure that our methods were effective, even though we were retrieving a certain amount of cataloging copy. For example, when we first used the truncated title as a search statement, we used the reverse slash available on
535
5.2 24.3 12.2 7.9
173 80 92 345
a particular terminal. We later learned that the reverse slash (ABC\D\E\F) deleted the prior letter, but the forward slash (ABC/D/E/F) conveyed the proper message. Little wonder that the printout often read NP (no postings)! In April 1975 NLM published the On-line Services Manual which contained specific instructions for CATLINE. Use of this manual has greatly increased our expertise and effectiveness. Searching is easier, search time is shorter, and relative costs have been cut (Table 2). Even with CATLINE we continue to retrieve only those portions of NLM copy which complement LC copy, or which might directly conflict with it: names, both personal and corporate; title transcription; choice of main entry, subject head-
TABLE 2 CATLINE COSTs AT HSL
Dates
Jan.June 1974 July 1974Jan. 1975 Feb.June 1975 JulyOct. 1975 Jan. 1974Oct. 1975
Hours of Terminal terminal connect Personnel time costt connect cost* time
Connect Total cost
Seahe
Hits
to hit ratio
Per search
Per hit
Total cost Per Per search
hit
$.185 $.606 $.283 $.927
$ 54.14 $156.62
553
169
3.27
125.04
340.62
1546
762
2.03
.139
.283
.220
.447
205.60
89.44
295.04
1097
451
2.43
.187
.456
.269
.654
10.12
151.80
37.44
189.24
745
437
1.70
.204
.347
.254
.433
88.83
$675.46
$306.16
$981.52
3941
1819
2.17
.171
.371
.249
.540
17.08
$102.48
35.93
215.58
25.70
*$6.00 per hour through January 1975; $8.00 per hour, February-June 1975; $15.00 per hour beginning in July 1975 (prime time rate). tThe terminal operator was a library assistant I (LA I) from January-June 1974, paid at $3.17 per hour. The period covering January through June 1974 does not include March and April. For various reasons we could not access the data base during these two months. From July 1974 through June 1975 the operator was an LA I, step 2, paid at $3.48 per hour. In July 1975 the pay rate was raised to $3.70 per hour. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(3) July 1976
329
BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS TABLE 3 COST COMPARISON: CATLINE VS. MANUAL SEARCHING
Manual searching*
CATLINE searchingt
OF
PRINTED NLM SOURCES
Personnel cost
Terminal connect hour cost
Total cost
Cost per search
Cost per hit
$53.86 54.14
-
$102.48
$ 53.86 156.62
$.464 .283
$.962 .926
*May-June 1974. 1 16 searches, 56 hits.
tJanuary-June 1974 (Table 2). in three consecutive shipments were located on the first search. 3. The imprint date of the material also determines which tool we use for searching. We have been searching only current imprints (that is, titles with copyright dates of the current and prior year) on CATLINE in order to conserve time at the terminal. Older titles are first searched in the printed NLM catalogs. 4. The cost of terminal connect time affects our retrieval cost directly (Table 3). Using manual methods in May and June of 1974, our cost per hit was $0.962; using CATLINE from January through June of 1974, with connect hour charges of $6.00 per hour, our cost per hit was $0.926 (a 3.7% reduction). However, connect hour charges are now $15.00 per hour for prime time and $8.00 per hour for nonprime time. The prime time charges, if applied to the January to June 1974 sample, would result in a cost per hit of $1.836, 90.8% more than the matching manual sample. The nonprime time charges would result in a cost per hit of $1.129, a 17.3% increase over the manual method. CATLINE information has the advantage of being very recent; it is often accessible before Current Catalog Proof Sheets arrive in our library. Use of CATLINE has reduced our search time for cataloging copy by almost 40% and this has a direct impact on output. However, using the TABLE 4 terminal costs us more per hit than using the PERCENTAGE OF MONOGRAPHS CATALOGED BY ProofSheets. SOURCE OF COPY We attempted to compare our findings with NLM sources those of other academic medical libraries reported Other Original in the journal literature, only to find that the CATLINE Proof Total sources cataloging published reports do not specify percentage of sheets CATLINE copy available, but rather the percen1 34.0% 60.0% 94.0% 6.0% tage of copy available from NLM sources (Table 2 75.1 7.3 82.4 11.9% 5.7 4). 3 n/a n/a 53.5 19.2 27,2 REFERENCES 4 n/a n/a 55.6 1.3 43.0 5 n/a n/a 84.9 9.8 5.2 1. UNGER, CAROL, AND BASILE, VICTOR A. CATLINE
ings, and call numbers. Asking for less than full copy reduces our total time on the terminal. Total costs and the search to hit ratio depend upon several factors: 1. The form of search statement affects how much time is spent at the terminal keyboard. Searching is now done using the LC card number when it is available, or the International Standard Book Number (ISBN), because these numbers usually retrieve only the specific title desired. Truncated titles and personal names are used; however, their use consumes more terminal time. For example, the instruction CLI/P#, for Clinical pathology, would retrieve many similar titles and require further on-line searching. 2. The types of materials searched affect both the search to hit ratio and the time lag from receipt of a book in the library until copy for it is available. CATLINE is especially good for titles received on domestic trade book approval plans. With a sample taken in July 1975 of 130 new titles, 93 (71.5%) were found in CATLINE on the first search. In part this may be because both HSL and NLM have used the same supplier. However, the search to hit ratio on titles received from our British and German suppliers has been disappointing. Only five titles (23.8%) of twenty-one received
*See references
330
1-5.
at the College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (C M DNJ). M LA News 65: 4, Apr. 1975.
Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(3)July 1976
BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS
2. GILMAN, NELSON J. CATLINE at Norris Medical LiBUTKOVICH, MARGARET. Cataloging costs with brary. MLA News 65: 4-5, Apr. 1975. CATLINE: a follow-up study. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 63: 414-415, Oct. 1975. The University of 3. ROBINSON, CYNTHIA. Source of cataloging copy. MLA News 65: 5, Apr. 1975. The University of Colorado Medical Center Denison Memorial Library. The period covered in this report is Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio. The June-July 1974. The sample includes 232 items. time period covered by this report is "Nov.-Jan. 1974-75." The sample consists of 709 monographs. 5. From the Health Sciences Library, University of 4. BOCK, ROCHELLE, BRAUDE, ROBERT M., AND California, Davis (Table 1).
Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(3) July 1976
331
staff members, library addresses and telephone numbers, and photocopying policies. For many of these hospital librarians this meant going to their administrators and developing written library policies. The gathering of this information was difficult, but by August 1975 all the serials data were processed and the policy statements were written and compiled. By September 18 the first run of the CAHSL Union List of Serials was produced and taken to the printer in order to meet the October deadline for a special meeting of CAHSL. In less than six months, from April to September, the CAHSL Union List of Serials had come into existence. While the first edition is not without error, the subsequent yearly updates will see the corrections made and the list expanded to include more health sciences libraries in the state. INDIVIDUAL SERVICES Another benefit of the CAHSL Union List of Serials is the easy capability of computer-producing individual hospital serials holdings lists and regional or consortium lists on a monthly, quarterly, semiannual, or annual basis. While a majority of the libraries have subscribed to a semiannual list, other libraries are interested in more frequent printouts. Consortium or regional groups have the benefit of obtaining multiple copies of their holdings for about three dollars per copy (this is a five-part copy at about fifteen dollars, split by five hospitals). The shared cost would depend on the size of the consortium or the number of hospitals in a specific region. The librarians have been urged to send in changes in their holdings on a continous basis, with specified deadlines set up for semiannual and quarterly updates. With individual printouts planned, the yearly updates for the CAHSL list will not be a major project but merely a continuation of an ongoing project. CONCLUSION The CAHSL Union List of Serials has two benefits: the first is to provide the membership with a yearly union list of serials that is easily updated, quickly printed, and low in cost. The second benefit is less tangible than a physical list but just as real: the cooperation (and esprit de corps) of the health sciences librarians in getting a major job done in such a short time. With this list there will come other benefits, such as the ability to plan cooperative acquisitions of journals and to
328
create reciprocal photocopying policies, and
budget sharing. Automated union lists of serials are not unique, and in fact they are too numerous to list. Unfortunately such lists are usually reserved for the larger libraries, and are not found in the environs of the 75-100-bed hospital because of cost and lack of facilities. The CAHSL list could not have been produced with such little expense or so quickly without the assistance of the University of Connecticut Health Center Library. However, the Health Center Library feels that by offering such assistance, it is playing an active and supportive role in the biomedical communications network. Such cooperation among health sciences libraries is necessary for good health-care systems and information delivery in any state.
CATLINE: Use and Costs at the Health Sciences Library, University of California, Davis BY DAVID C. ANDERSON, Technical Services Librarian Health Sciences Library University of California, Davis
THE
Health Sciences Library (HSL) of the University of California, Davis, uses a cataloging procedure which combines aspects of both Library of Congress (LC) and National Library of Medicine (NLM) practices. HSL's policies regarding choice and form of entry and bibliographic description follow LC; classification and subject headings are based on NLM. Because HSL has combined these cataloging practices, retrieval of both LC and NLM catalog copy on a timely basis has always been important. Without LC and NLM copy, more titles would require original cataloging locally, costing more time and money. (Table 1 indicates sources of catalog copy information in the HSL for 1974/75). Because CATLINE provides information both before publication, for Cataloging-In-Publication materials, and soon after publication, its use is especially important. Before CATLINE was available on-line through the NLM, HSL staff used the monthly and cumulated Current Catalog and Current Catalog Proof Sheets to find and retrieve NLM copy. HSL copies only part of the information from the printed catalogs: the date of the printed Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(3)July 1976
BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS
TABLE I CATALOG OUTPUT AND SOURCES OF INFORMATION, 1974/75
Type of
Monographs Serials Analytics Total
Number 3297 329 752 4378
With LC and NLM copy
With LC
With NLM
copy only
copy only
Without any copy
________any_cop
Number
Percent
Number
Percent
Number
Percent
2443 128 472 3043
74.1 38.9 62.8 69.5
324 10 121
9.8 3.0 16.1 10.4
357 111 67
10.8 33.7 8.9 12.2
455
catalog consulted, the call number for the desired item, and the subject headings. These portions of the cataloging copy complement what is available from LC copy. When we first began to use CATLINE in September 1973, no manual of CATLINE search methods was available to us. The staff at HSL who were trained in MEDLINE search techniques taught us search methods applicable to our needs. We also sought help from the regional medical library. And at times, we learned by serendipity. We were not necessarily sure that our methods were effective, even though we were retrieving a certain amount of cataloging copy. For example, when we first used the truncated title as a search statement, we used the reverse slash available on
535
5.2 24.3 12.2 7.9
173 80 92 345
a particular terminal. We later learned that the reverse slash (ABC\D\E\F) deleted the prior letter, but the forward slash (ABC/D/E/F) conveyed the proper message. Little wonder that the printout often read NP (no postings)! In April 1975 NLM published the On-line Services Manual which contained specific instructions for CATLINE. Use of this manual has greatly increased our expertise and effectiveness. Searching is easier, search time is shorter, and relative costs have been cut (Table 2). Even with CATLINE we continue to retrieve only those portions of NLM copy which complement LC copy, or which might directly conflict with it: names, both personal and corporate; title transcription; choice of main entry, subject head-
TABLE 2 CATLINE COSTs AT HSL
Dates
Jan.June 1974 July 1974Jan. 1975 Feb.June 1975 JulyOct. 1975 Jan. 1974Oct. 1975
Hours of Terminal terminal connect Personnel time costt connect cost* time
Connect Total cost
Seahe
Hits
to hit ratio
Per search
Per hit
Total cost Per Per search
hit
$.185 $.606 $.283 $.927
$ 54.14 $156.62
553
169
3.27
125.04
340.62
1546
762
2.03
.139
.283
.220
.447
205.60
89.44
295.04
1097
451
2.43
.187
.456
.269
.654
10.12
151.80
37.44
189.24
745
437
1.70
.204
.347
.254
.433
88.83
$675.46
$306.16
$981.52
3941
1819
2.17
.171
.371
.249
.540
17.08
$102.48
35.93
215.58
25.70
*$6.00 per hour through January 1975; $8.00 per hour, February-June 1975; $15.00 per hour beginning in July 1975 (prime time rate). tThe terminal operator was a library assistant I (LA I) from January-June 1974, paid at $3.17 per hour. The period covering January through June 1974 does not include March and April. For various reasons we could not access the data base during these two months. From July 1974 through June 1975 the operator was an LA I, step 2, paid at $3.48 per hour. In July 1975 the pay rate was raised to $3.70 per hour. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(3) July 1976
329
BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS TABLE 3 COST COMPARISON: CATLINE VS. MANUAL SEARCHING
Manual searching*
CATLINE searchingt
OF
PRINTED NLM SOURCES
Personnel cost
Terminal connect hour cost
Total cost
Cost per search
Cost per hit
$53.86 54.14
-
$102.48
$ 53.86 156.62
$.464 .283
$.962 .926
*May-June 1974. 1 16 searches, 56 hits.
tJanuary-June 1974 (Table 2). in three consecutive shipments were located on the first search. 3. The imprint date of the material also determines which tool we use for searching. We have been searching only current imprints (that is, titles with copyright dates of the current and prior year) on CATLINE in order to conserve time at the terminal. Older titles are first searched in the printed NLM catalogs. 4. The cost of terminal connect time affects our retrieval cost directly (Table 3). Using manual methods in May and June of 1974, our cost per hit was $0.962; using CATLINE from January through June of 1974, with connect hour charges of $6.00 per hour, our cost per hit was $0.926 (a 3.7% reduction). However, connect hour charges are now $15.00 per hour for prime time and $8.00 per hour for nonprime time. The prime time charges, if applied to the January to June 1974 sample, would result in a cost per hit of $1.836, 90.8% more than the matching manual sample. The nonprime time charges would result in a cost per hit of $1.129, a 17.3% increase over the manual method. CATLINE information has the advantage of being very recent; it is often accessible before Current Catalog Proof Sheets arrive in our library. Use of CATLINE has reduced our search time for cataloging copy by almost 40% and this has a direct impact on output. However, using the TABLE 4 terminal costs us more per hit than using the PERCENTAGE OF MONOGRAPHS CATALOGED BY ProofSheets. SOURCE OF COPY We attempted to compare our findings with NLM sources those of other academic medical libraries reported Other Original in the journal literature, only to find that the CATLINE Proof Total sources cataloging published reports do not specify percentage of sheets CATLINE copy available, but rather the percen1 34.0% 60.0% 94.0% 6.0% tage of copy available from NLM sources (Table 2 75.1 7.3 82.4 11.9% 5.7 4). 3 n/a n/a 53.5 19.2 27,2 REFERENCES 4 n/a n/a 55.6 1.3 43.0 5 n/a n/a 84.9 9.8 5.2 1. UNGER, CAROL, AND BASILE, VICTOR A. CATLINE
ings, and call numbers. Asking for less than full copy reduces our total time on the terminal. Total costs and the search to hit ratio depend upon several factors: 1. The form of search statement affects how much time is spent at the terminal keyboard. Searching is now done using the LC card number when it is available, or the International Standard Book Number (ISBN), because these numbers usually retrieve only the specific title desired. Truncated titles and personal names are used; however, their use consumes more terminal time. For example, the instruction CLI/P#, for Clinical pathology, would retrieve many similar titles and require further on-line searching. 2. The types of materials searched affect both the search to hit ratio and the time lag from receipt of a book in the library until copy for it is available. CATLINE is especially good for titles received on domestic trade book approval plans. With a sample taken in July 1975 of 130 new titles, 93 (71.5%) were found in CATLINE on the first search. In part this may be because both HSL and NLM have used the same supplier. However, the search to hit ratio on titles received from our British and German suppliers has been disappointing. Only five titles (23.8%) of twenty-one received
*See references
330
1-5.
at the College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (C M DNJ). M LA News 65: 4, Apr. 1975.
Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(3)July 1976
BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS
2. GILMAN, NELSON J. CATLINE at Norris Medical LiBUTKOVICH, MARGARET. Cataloging costs with brary. MLA News 65: 4-5, Apr. 1975. CATLINE: a follow-up study. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 63: 414-415, Oct. 1975. The University of 3. ROBINSON, CYNTHIA. Source of cataloging copy. MLA News 65: 5, Apr. 1975. The University of Colorado Medical Center Denison Memorial Library. The period covered in this report is Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio. The June-July 1974. The sample includes 232 items. time period covered by this report is "Nov.-Jan. 1974-75." The sample consists of 709 monographs. 5. From the Health Sciences Library, University of 4. BOCK, ROCHELLE, BRAUDE, ROBERT M., AND California, Davis (Table 1).
Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(3) July 1976
331
