AUTOMATION OF SERIALS CHECK-IN

This paper discusses what "automation of serials" should mean. It should include the all important check-in function, which is complicated for various reasons. Administrators don't usually know that a central serials file is dynamite. After watching computers we have come to realize how efficient a manual system can be and why. A truly automated system does not yet exist, but there are some semi-automated operations. Since computerization is here to stay, this paper sounds a number of warnings, among them the specter of information inflation and bibliographic overkill. Yet in the future automated serials systems will be effective if they are on-line and comprehensive, including full claiming and binding control, and ideally the ability to write checks. Reasons are given to explain why NOTIS-3 is probably the best system now in operation, although apparently not yet cost effective. This paper ends with a discussion of costs. Good cost studies do not appear to exist; yet a computerized serials system should not cost more than a manual one.