[DCRM-L] Future publication of DCRMs

Thu Feb 28 09:53:17 MST 2013

Deborah said, ³The value that publication in Cataloger¹s Desktop adds to BSC
documents in terms of integration, linking, formatting, and overall
convenience is not insignificant. RBMS is in no position to come even close
to duplicating that functionality ... I would prefer to have LC publish our
manuals on Cataloger¹s Desktop, with all its attendant functionality, along
with the understanding that we could supply a flat electronic text file for
free from our website. Seriously‹is anyone going to cancel their Cataloger¹s
Desktop subscription because they can get a pdf of DCRM(C) for free?²

Excellent points! 

Re the latter, whether or not open access to a version of a pub reduces
sales of print has been a big question for perhaps a decade now. (This is
irrelevant to the Cat Desktop, of course, with all its great functionality.)
The SAA pubs director tells me that the prevailing wisdom is that no, it
doesn¹t reduce sales of print. This assumes a print publication that has a
major added-convenience factor, which I would guess  constantly-at-hand
manuals such as the DCRMs do have. LC surely has a longstanding philosophy
about this, given all the cataloging tools that it publishes and the extent
to which they¹ve gradually ditched print right and left.

---Jackie

From: Deborah Leslie <djleslie at folger.edu>
Reply-To: DCRM-L <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2013 04:09:10 +0000
To: DCRM-L <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Cc: "bsc at rbms.info" <bsc at rbms.info>
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Future publication of DCRMs

Jackie,

Thanks for your excellent points.

LC just did a 3rd printing of DCRM(B) in late 2011. I¹m guessing they¹re
still selling copies, to students in my RBS classes if nowhere else (-;
DCRM(S) is more recent, and with almost certainly less demand. It would be
interesting to know the rate of sales and at what point it would benefit LC
to give up the print for loss.

Open access in itself isn¹t an unqualified good. The value that publication
in Cataloger¹s Desktop adds to BSC documents in terms of integration,
linking, formatting, and overall convenience is not insignificant. RBMS is
in no position to come even close to duplicating that functionality should
we decided to self-publish.

The question then becomes what¹s most important. It sounds like we¹re mostly
agreed that Cataloger¹s Desktop-only publication would be profoundly
self-defeating. I would prefer to have LC publish our manuals on Cataloger¹s
Desktop, with all its attendant functionality, along with the understanding
that we could supply a flat electronic text file for free from our website.
Seriously‹is anyone going to cancel their Cataloger¹s Desktop subscription
because they can get a pdf of DCRM(C) for free?

Inventory control: not sure how demanding of resources it is. Apparently the
DCRM(B) 2nd printing had completely run out for a while (a couple of months,
if I¹m remembering correctly) before we knew about it. That¹s because our
CDS contact didn¹t know about it. Their staff level has been so mutilated
over the past several years to leave no one with the ³leisure² of paying
attention to such things.

I¹m now reminded that as result of this OP crisis, we were going to
institutionalize having the BSC chair request figures once a year from CDS.
That¹ll be something to add to the new ³BSC Manual² in development. (Audrey,
are you listening?)

Best,
Deborah 

From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On
Behalf Of Jackie Dooley
Sent: Wednesday, 27 February, 2013 21:13
To: DCRM-L
Subject: [DCRM-L] Future publication of DCRMs

The writing is clearly on the wall that printed DCRMs are soon to be a thing
of the past, and it sounds like nobody has a problem with that. Huzzah for
open access! If RBMS is the only entity involved in production, then the
incredible amounts of time that you all spend can happily be added to your
karma count instead of any energy being expended being frustrated that
somebody else is trying to make a profit (or even just break even) from your
expert volunteer labor.

A few observations and opinions:

Who should be the publisher going forward?: Does it matter whether LC is the
publisher? Do the manuals lose any cache¹ if it¹s not LC? I¹m guessing the
answers to both are no.

Communicating up the RBMS food chain: Richard is right‹the Publications
Committee should be in the loop at this point. Should RBMS be the publisher?
Do they care about printed versions? Would ACRL care what happens? My
assumption would be that ACRL would have no interest in being the publisher
if RBMS only wants to make the DCRMs available as open-source content, but
it¹s not at all too soon for your Pubs experts, maybe even the Executive
Committee, to weigh in. The cataloging standards are one of RBMS¹s flagship
enterprises! Ceasing print and/or restricting their availability are big
issues. Clearly availability via the Catalogers¹ Desktop alone doesn¹t serve
the community.

DCRM(G) in print: I suggest that someone ask Peter Seligman to be more
specific about exactly who/what would be affected by an 11th-hour
cancellation of DCRM(G) in print. If the special collections cataloging
community doesn¹t give a hoot about print, who does? Has there been
publicity already? Are the presses standing by? Has a contract been signed
that gives them the right to publish? Do they care whether they publish?
Might the powers at LC be perfectly happy to have it cease to be their
responsibility if they thought about it rationally?

Selling off print runs so existing titles can be available as open access:
It would be good to get data from LC about how many copies they¹re selling
of each title annually (hence what the income is), and how many copies are
left in the print runs. Presumably this is public information. It¹s
conceivable that they spend more money managing inventory than they selling
copies. I¹m pretty familiar with the Society of American Archivists¹
publication practices and can report that they sometimes have a fire sale on
pubs that no longer sell very many copies annually (no idea what the cutoff
is). Maybe there¹s ALA/ACRL practice to be cited: did they care how many
copies of Paper Terms were still on hand after 30 years of selling only
five/year before they let you put them online for free access? :) Is Peter a
decision maker or a messenger?

Best wishes to all‹ Jackie

-- 
Jackie Dooley
Program Officer, OCLC Research
& President,
Society of American Archivists

dooleyj at oclc.org
949.492.5060 (work/home) -- Pacific Time (GMT 8)
949.295.1529 (mobile)

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