---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 11:24:11 EDT
From: Steve Savage <SMSAVA01@UKCC.UKY.EDU>
Subject: Re: non-current titles in Kardex? (Elizabeth Brucker)

Below are answers from the Serials Dept. at the University of Kentucky.
This department handles titles kept in the Periodicals Dept., Reference,
the main stacks (annuals and irregulars), about 12 branch libraries, and a
limited number of titles kept in Government Publications dept. and Special
Collections.  All together, our manual kardex includes about 8,000 current
titles, 30,000 ceased, cancelled and linked-to-current titles, and about
20,000 sets of cards for other purposes described below.

Steve Savage
University of Kentucky Libraries

>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 13:31:19 -0500
>From: Elizabeth Brucker <ebrucker@EAGLE.IBC.EDU>
>Subject: non-current titles in Kardex?
>
>I inherited a Kardex when I came to my first professional job in
>November, 1993.  I'm ready to make some changes, but I was wondering what
>the state of the Kardex is elsewhere.
>
>For example, does your Kardex include any non-current titles (aside from
>title changes when you are still receiving the new title)?  I will
>explain how this question arose at the end of this message.

As mentioned above, our kardex includes records for both current and non-
current titles.  Having all these in one alphabetical file makes it
much easier for both the acquisitions work the kardex must support, and
the public service work it must support.  It's much easier and less time
consuming to have everything in one file rather than having to check
several files when difficulties arise.

We stopped recording holdings on shelflist cards back in the mid-1970s, if
I remember correctly.  Since then, we have treated the kardex as the shelflist
for our serials, though we did continue to add bib cards for serials to
the shelflist till a few years ago, when we stopped maintaining and expanding
our shelflist, regardless of the type of material.

We do have a separate file, in a different department, of set/series titles
for which individual volumes are cataloged separately from each other (either
as monographs or analyzed).  We waste a LOT of time running back and forth
between the two just to determine which file contains titles at hand, so much
so, we've decided to move the monographic sets and series kardex into the
Serials Dept. when we eventually move into a new larger building in a few
years.
>
>Does your Kardex include any see-references?

Yes, many of which are generated by fields within the bib records, and many
of which we have added as a result of confusing representations of titles
on invoices, the pieces themselves, and to simplify the complications caused
by corporate and editor main entries from older cataloging rules.
>
>Does your Kardex include information about missing bound volumes, or do
>you track them in a separate file?

Yes, we keep all holdings information for a title on its cards.  We're very
big here on the "only have to look in one place" approach, both for public
and for staff.

We consider the fundamental purpose of the kardex to be maintance of holdings
information, whether holdings result from current acquisition or from
addition to the collection decades ago.

We do not yet have online holdings records in our local system.  Holdings
records for our titles in our statewide union list are just very brief
summary statements, so they cannot servie the purpose we need at our
public service desks.  We've decided to create online holdings records
from a manual shelf inventory because a random study showed a 60%
rate of titles having significant differences between holdings information
on the cards and what we actually have on the shelves (hopefully just the.
results of materials disappearing over the years, or being damaged, or
the reasonable human error rate we all must live with). We plan on starting
that holdings conversion process in a couple of months.

Cards for withdrawn titles are not kept in is file, however, due to limited
space in the kardex.  Those are kept in a set of filing boxes in one of the
CSR staff's office. Fortunately, we only rarely need to consult them.  Becuase
we've run out of space in those boxes, we'll probalby throw out a lot of the
older ones soon.
>
>Does your Kardex include instructions for materials not checked in (e.g.,
>throw-aways, newsletters which are routed or filed)?

Yes, selectors' decisions are recorded here on, as are routing instructions.