Growth, Creativity and Collaboration: Great Visions on a Great Lake: Proceedings of the North American Serials Interest Group, Inc, 19th Annual Conference, June 17‐20 2004, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Citation

James, S. (2006), "Growth, Creativity and Collaboration: Great Visions on a Great Lake: Proceedings of the North American Serials Interest Group, Inc, 19th Annual Conference, June 17‐20 2004, Milwaukee, Wisconsin", Library Review, Vol. 55 No. 5, pp. 324-325. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530610667594

I don't know how much it cost to attend this conference, but the delegates must have come away feeling they had had their money's worth – and probably thoroughly exhausted too. Well‐planned and very thorough, this looks like one of those conferences one tends to describe as both exhaustive and exhausting. In the first place, the contents of the four days were very well planned. It may be a subjective view but I always have the impression that conferences by and for serials or acquisitions librarians seem better focused and organised than most.

This one certainly fits that description. Pre‐conference sessions looked at three fundamental issues: an “Integrating Resources Cataloguing Workshop”, a “Serialist Boot Camp” (the frightening title belies a good overview session) and “Budgeting Lessons and Stories.” From pre‐conference to conference, and five vision papers look at the current context for serials, leading on to 12 strategies and 19 tactics session. See what I mean about exhaustive and exhausting?

All a reviewer can do with such a collection is give an overview and snapshot of the contents, and pick out a few highlights and themes. The vision papers naturally look at different perspectives on changing scholarly publication in the electronic age, including the view of a commercial publisher. Of the strategy papers I was struck by “The Economics of Scholarly Publishing” and especially its sub‐title “Through a glass, darkly”. But other papers looking at the process suggest we really should be able to make more informed judgments by now. Licensing systems, pricing models and hidden costs are among the topics covered. The joys (or not) of managing these resources are mainly covered in the Tactics sessions, and here a whole range of matters is addressed: working with publishers, collection management, budgeting, evaluation, marketing and many other specific issues are covered. Finally, there are short accounts of eight poster sessions. The contents are clearly labelled within the conference programme itself, but the whole work is made more valuable still by a subject index: given the range and depth of the contents that is most welcome.

This is not a manual or textbook but a collection of papers giving individual views, opinions or approaches to the myriad issues addressed. It is always useful, and often instructive, to see how others do it, and that is one the strengths of this collection of papers. In our global age the fact that the papers were delivered in North America and reflect primarily North American experience is irrelevant: we are all in much the same boat. There is an excellent mixture here, from the broad overviews of present and future trends, down to the nitty‐gritty of acquiring and managing serials in a rapidly developing era. Practitioners at all levels will find something here, both to interest and inform them. But don't try reading it from cover to cover, or if you do, wonder how you might have coped as a delegate at this conference: my guess is sitting in sessions either busily writing down notes, wondering how much you will remember, or just hoping the published version wouldn't be too long delayed.