At the risk of running this topic right into the ground, I would
like to elaborate somewhat on the previous discussions concerning
SISAC barcodes. As luck would have it, I was in New York attending
a SISAC meeting on behalf of AALL when Penny Hazelton brought up
the topic last week and I would like to perhaps clarify a few
things. First of all, I'm thrilled to see such enthusiasm in the
law library world for the SISAC barcodes and I applaud Penny's
efforts to share what she has discovered. I encourage you all to
contact your publishers/printers. The more people who get
involved, the better. However, I don't wish to leave anyone with
the impression that a couple of well-timed phone calls is all that
is needed for SISAC implementation.
As many of you are probably aware, this is certainly not a new
cause for AALL and I think we should give credit where it is due.
Norma Feld from Cardozo Law School worked diligently as the former
AALL SISAC Representative for several years. Part of her efforts
involved forming a subcommittee within the TS/SIS Serials Committee
that lobbied law reviews to adopt the barcodes. In fact, it is
largely due to Norma's efforts that the Law Library Journal now
sports the SISAC barcode. The committee has also been in
communication with both Darby and Christiansen Printers (the main
printers of law reviews) encouraging them to implement the barcodes
on all of their law publications. In addition, Cecilia Kwan from
UC-Davis Law Library has repeatedly contacted the major law
publishers to do the same. It should be understood though that the
problem is much more complicated than the hesitancy of law
publishers to implement SISAC standards.
At the SISAC meeting, there was much discussion about the "chicken
and the egg problem". Publishers are understandably dragging their
feet in the implementation process because their first question is
invariably, "If we put the barcodes on, will libraries be able to
use them?" Unfortunately, the answer right now is almost always
"no". To my knowledge, none of the major library automation
systems, (i.e. Innovative, NOTIS, and others) are presently
equipped to scan the barcodes. To further complicate the issues
for law publications, before SISAC barcodes can be used, the
publication must have an ISSN. Aside from law reviews, many, many
legal publications that we treat as serials do not have ISSN's. So
this is a big hurdle for many of our major publishers to get over.
Conversely, while many of the library automation companies are
telling us that SISAC implementation is in the "development
stages", they are naturally not in a big hurry to expend the
significant resources it would take to implement the process on
their systems if few publishers use the codes. In addition to
people from the law library community lobbying their systems, it
will no doubt take librarians, publishers, and serial agents from
other disciplines (primarily the sciences) to influence the
automation powers and convince them that implementing SISAC is
worth the all the trouble.
If nothing else, I just wanted to emphasize this is an important
issue to players at all levels of the serials industry. While we
alone (law librarians) may never be able to single-handedly
convince publishers, vendors, and library automation companies to
move forward in SISAC implementation, we certainly have an integral
role to play. If any of you have questions, please don't hesitate
to contact me. I may not know the answer, but I can probably find
someone who does.
Nonie Watt
AALL SISAC Representative
Indiana University Law Library
Bloomington, IN 47405
812/855-9666
wattn@ucs.indiana.edu
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