trend is not a loss of knowledge, it is a shift of knowledge away from individual libraries tolibrarians employed by vendors. As more libraries outsource, there will be more opportunities forlibrarians to be employed by vendors. Brown encourages librarians to take the challenge and tryworking for a vendor. The new workplace can be seen as a scary place or as an opportunity to addbreath of knowledge and diversity. Take the opportunity.

This year’s President’s Program presented a balanced and informative look at how new trendsin library management, such as outsourcing, are affecting our organizations and the individualsemployed by them. Much useful information was provided on how to effectively deal withoutsourcing, both as a manager and as an employee.

PII: S0364-6408(98)000111-2 Deborah FetchHead, Cataloging Dept.

Woodward LibraryAustin Peay State University

Clarksville, TN 37044Internet: fetchd@apsu.edu

Bias in Academic Library Collections: Highlights from the ALCTS/CMDS Collection Develop-ment in Academic Libraries Discussion Group

Three years ago at the ALA Midwinter meeting in Philadelphia, the ALCTS/CMDS CollectionDevelopment in Academic Libraries Discussion Group sponsored a program on document deliveryand direct patron access to collections. The house was packed. Two years ago a large audience atMidwinter in San Antonio heard about the selection and collection of Web sites. Unfortunately, atopic of equal significance, but with a much lower profile, drew about two dozen to this summer’sdiscussion group. The fragility of diversity in collection development, its sometimes unintentionalcauses, and the inherent dangers of some of its solutions have long been issues for libraries, buttheir significance has rarely been greater. From the presentations and subsequent discussion, thereis no question that the small, albeit steady publication of peripheral material, buoyed by the spiritof both small and alternative publishers and members of the library community, will continueagainst the patterns of both the marketplace and the effect of evolving technology. Some of thesolutions to alternative publishing’s dilemmas have the potential to reinforce existing difficulties,but do make for a challenging issue in collection development.

The panelists for this discussion, although they represented three different perspectives, hadconverging visions of where small presses, marginalized points of view, and generally under-represented groups and disciplines may be headed. Byron Anderson, Head of Reference, NorthernIllinois University Libraries; Mev Miller, Project Coordinator, Women’s Presses Library Project;and Milton Wolf, Vice President for Collection Programs, Center for Research Libraries, allexpressed sympathy for the tenuous existence of much peripheral information.

A serious danger in efforts to promote a broader awareness of and a predilection for small press,rare (in the sense of non-core), third world, and alternative materials is that of being co-opted intothe core. Diffusion in selling or watering down of the edge of a topic to make it more palatable asa legitimate, marketable entity threatens the essential identity of these materials. Some smallpublishers have considered, for example, the technique of a few university presses to cultivate intheir lists a very small number of popular, mainstream items that can become the cash cow with

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which to support the existence of more marginal, yet intellectually significant, items. A possibledanger lies in the success of such enterprises and implies an effort at something akin to “successmanagement,” although none of the panelists seemed to think that would be a significant problemin the short term.

Byron Anderson is also Associate Editor ofCounterpois, a new publication of the AmericanLibrary Association Social Responsibilities Roundtable. He placed the problem into perspective bynoting five reasons for alternative materials. While he admitted such justification in many ways wasself evident, good intentions often fall prey to the pressures of time, money, and audience as muchas to more sensitive political pressure concerning the substance of the materials. The first and mostbasic concern is that alternative materials cover areas of knowledge that are not necessarily coveredby mainstream publishing. Anderson noted Ariel Dorfman’sHow to Read Donald Duck: ImperialIdeology in the Disney Comic(New York: International General, 1975). which in part studies theeffect of mass-market ideology on the culture of the third world. Published originally in Valpariso,Chile, in 1971 asPara leel al Pato Donald, the title was very difficult to obtain even after itstranslation in 1975.

The lack of diversity in collections also denies patron browsability, Anderson noted. Althoughbrowsability is influenced by a number of circumstances, having too much closely related materialcan create a collection that is noteworthy only for its consistent blandness. A corollary principle isthat alternative materials provide a counterpoint to prevailing schools of thought. Anderson citedbooks that had a pacifist theme early in the Cold War as an example of a point of view that has beenunder-expressed in collections. Giving voice to marginalized groups is another important benefit ofalternative-press materials. Bluestocking Press, for example, has published materials for obesepersons, something that the mainstream press would probably see little practical or commercialvalue in doing. Finally, Anderson noted that the small and alternative presses simply help fill gapsin collections.

Although the logic behind the reasons for collecting alternative materials seems indisputable, thepressures of the marketplace often overshadow intrinsic values. Anderson suggested that theincreasing tendency to see knowledge and, more narrowly, information, as commodities was a veryreal threat to small presses. At one time, he noted, about 90% of small presses were publishers offine literature. That number has dropped significantly as a rich diversity of subjects makes its wayinto print, mostly due to the salutary effect of technology upon the publishing trade. Selective useof automation has made publishing possible on a very small scale, and while the number of smalland alternative press titles grows rapidly in areas such as self-help, how-to, and health-relatedbooks, their acceptance in the mainstream world of major bookstores and in libraries has lagged.

At best, small presses produce between one and 60 titles per year with budgets ranging from$30,000 to $3,000,000. Print runs are typically in double figures and rarely exceed 3,000. Not onlydo these numbers pale beside those of mainstream publishers, but alternative presses do not dealwith high overhead, promotion, or marketing, nor are they typically involved in the payment ofsignificant advances to major authors in the way that core publishers do. Indeed many smallpresses, noted Anderson, are not-for-profit, both literally and figuratively. They typically have lowadvertising budgets, circulate a small number of review copies, and are simply not in the positionto pay the fees necessary to secure exhibit space at major meetings and conventions. They are lesslikely to be distributed by the half-dozen major book vendors, and, of special significance to thelibrary world, they are much less likely to be reviewed. While stopping short of asserting thatmarginalized books were victims of ade factofirst amendment issue, Anderson implied that a casecould be made for special consideration of under-represented materials. Oddly enough, there arecertain characteristics of small presses that one might wish major presses would follow. For

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example, most alternative presses keep their backlists in print or available for a much longer periodthan do the major publishers. Still the trends are depressing. The twelve largest publishers accountfor about 80% of the publishing output. Another 50,000 make up the rest of the titles. The evolutionof media conglomerates will only exacerbate this tendency, Anderson noted.

Mev Miller serves as the Women’s Presses Library Project Coordinator. This consortium ofapproximately 30 small publishers of women’s materials has shared resources for about 5 years inan attempt to increase the general visibility of both the publishers and their products in commercialand educational information outlets in the U.S. and Canada. Miller began by characterizing theenvironment of the alternative title and alternative presses, echoing many of Anderson’s conclu-sions. Drawing from her own work, she noted that the Women’s Presses Project tries to promotetitles ignored by the mainstream and looks at topics that are not monolithic, i.e., women’s materialsthat also cover the aged, disabled, racial themes, and homophobia. While there has been significantinterest and publicity surrounding the efforts of the project to gain a wider audience, she noted,increased sales have not followed.

Alternative presses have many of the same purposes of their larger counterparts, but on adifferent scale. In addition, they usually have a political or cultural slant to them. Such materialsare typically cutting-edge, and often have a lag time before their substance and hence, theiraccompanying information resources, become an issue for the mainstream publishing world andconsumers in general. Sometimes, Miller noted, a particular item or theme will catch on and gomainstream. Such materials then often provide badly needed revenue for the survival of other itemsin a publisher’s list. Indeed the pressure to have a commercially successful item raises thetemptation for an item to be watered-down or mainstreamed. The tension between intellectualintegrity in alternative publishing and the pressure for financial solvency is a delicate one, and isprey to other influences. For example, Miller observed that the development of the giant commer-cial book chains, and their subsequent effect on the independent bookstore, is generally bad forsmall presses because currently it is in those independent bookstores that their strength, if any, lies.Miller also pointed out that libraries perhaps need to be more like bookstores in providingalternatives to general core collections. Securing reviews of small and alternative print titles isanother major problem, noted Miller. She cited one test sample of 396 alternative press titles ofwhich 15% were reviewed inLibrary Journal, 13% inPublisher’s Weekly, 4% inKirkus Reviews,3% in Choice, and only 2% in theNew York Times. In addition, such titles were rarely picked upby major vendors, much less placed on their approval plans. Ironically, the print runs for most smallpress titles are typically fewer than the some 3,300 academic libraries in the U.S., Miller noted.Women’s Studies, one perceived solid academic market, typically does not utilize alternativesources that much, and tends to work with mainstream publishers and relatively high-profileauthors.

Milton Wolf approached the issue from a slightly broader perspective. He pointed out that theCenter for Research Libraries (CRL) will not collect a title if more than five members already holdit. He suggested that libraries might ask themselves how much of what everyone else has do theyhave, and how much of one’s serials purchasing is based on something subscribed to by others? Hisquestions, he admitted, while rhetorical, also implied the overriding influence of the core principlein today’s libraries as opposed to the character of diversity and uniqueness in local collections. Weare creating “vanilla collections,” and it is clear, Wolf said, that the costs of materials will forcelibraries to acquire an increasingly declining portion of available information. The value ofpartnerships and consortia, whether they are national in scope, as is CRL, or more regional, shouldbe evident. However, he noted, libraries often must first overcome the inertia against partnerships,particularly the pride and ego involved in local collections. A case in point, he argued, waspublished data such as the ARL statistics on the largest libraries, and the effort that goes into

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preparing and maintaining the data that determines the rankings, as well as the resources that arespent in achieving a position within those rankings. Local investment is often an impediment tocooperation, he noted, as is lack of inter-institutional communication about local program needs ordecisions not to collect.

During the question and answer session there was significant discussion of approval plans,especially as to whether they contributed to a lack of diversity. A number of audience members feltthat the plans’ lack of coverage of small and alternative press titles contributed to the tenuousexistence of such enterprises, while others saw the plans contributing to Wolf’s “vanilla collec-tions.” Audience members were encouraged to seek more alternative titles from their vendors aswell as to take the “hard road” in collection development, i.e., to value the importance of carefulselection, the arduousness of making individual purchasing decisions, and to look carefully atsingle items rather than relying too heavily on approval plans, awards plans, and other macro-purchasing techniques. The discussion clearly reflected the ambiguity of the speakers. The richnessof diversity in the publishing industry and in library collections is unquestionably a much soughtafter characteristic, but the economics not only of the publishing industry but of library operationsseems to conspire unwittingly against the intrinsic good. Macro techniques such as approval plansand outsourcing share a precarious balance with the careful selection and shepherding of scarceresources.

PII: S0364-6408(98)000113-6 Lynn ClineHead, Acquisitions & Collection Development

Southwest Missouri State University LibraryAcquisitions Department

Springfield, MO 65804-0095Internet: lynncline@mail.smsu.edu

Playing the Game while Writing the Rules: The Impact of Electronic Technology on CollectionDevelopment Planning

Sponsored by the ALCTS Collection Development and Electronic Media Committee, thisprogram was held before a standing-room-only audience of approximately 250 in the WashingtonHilton, where, to add an historical footnote, an assassination attempt was made on President RonaldReagan. The moderator, Peggy Johnson, Deputy Assistant Director, the University of Minnesota,began by introducing the three speakers.

The first presentation, “The Impact of New Technology on the Bibliographer’s DecisionMaking” was made by John Rutledge, Bibliographer Western European Resources, the Universityof North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. Rutledge asserted that contemporary collection develop-ment is like playing Calvin ball in the comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes”—“the rules are alwayschanging, and you can’t score.” He stated that collection development is being redefined at theinstitutional, consortial, and international levels and that it is now necessary to be knowledgeableabout numerous factors one previously did not have to consider, i.e., server space, operatingsystems, and contracts.

Rutledge, revealing that he is one of a team of six bibliographers and has been in his position

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