Email list hosting service & mailing list manager


Re: "Reliability" of print (Re: [SERIALST] Cease claiming, checking in, binding) Dana Pearson 21 Jan 2010 22:16 UTC

Yeah, I remember two or three volumes that went missing toward the end
of the semester.  I was really keen on reading articles contained
therein for my paper.  They re-appeared after the semester ended.
Volumes in question, lib and info science, me in my 3rd semester of
library school I think.  Go figure that one.

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Rick Anderson <rick.anderson@utah.edu> wrote:
>> But I want to point out that, generally, our online
>> journal content is available to users 24/7 from wherever they have internet
>> access.  Our print journal content is available to them only when the library
>> is open, and they then still have to trek to the library and find the stuff
>> they are looking for.
>
> Because I know you guys aren't tired of hearing from me yet, heh heh, let me
> just chime in quickly and amplify Buddy's point.  I think we all tend to
> assume that print is more reliable than online, because it doesn't (usually)
> disappear spontaneously the way online access can.  But it's easy to forget
> that print does go "down" regularly, and constantly.  If your library is
> open 18 hours a day, 7 days per week, then your print collection has a 25%
> downtime rate -- which we would never tolerate in an online product.
>
> Of course, that doesn't take into account the fact that print _does_
> sometimes disappear spontaneously, nor the fact that if another patrons gets
> to the print copy before you, then access to that copy is "down" for you
> just as effectively as if the library were closed.
>
> --
> Rick Anderson
> Assoc. Dir. for Scholarly Resources & Collections
> Marriott Library
> Univ. of Utah
> rick.anderson@utah.edu
> (801) 721-1687
>