The library budget, a topic of primary importance to the reference librarian, is thoroughly examined in this book, first published in 1988. Experts offer insightful suggestions for reference librarians to understand and take responsibility for budget issues, directly and indirectly. They address the ability to explain the budget - which actually entails explaining the collection, the services, and the process in place for managing the fiscal resources - a necessary skill for any reference librarian faced with looming budget cuts. Providing quality services on a limited budget is also explored. The contributors provide helpful essays on convincing the parent agency to provide adequate support, setting goals and priorities, generating revenue, and more.

Here is one of the first books to address the problems of serials as they relate to the user, the reference librarian, and the library itself. Opening a crucial dialogue, serials librarians and reference librarians explore ways in which they can work together to make serials more accessible to the user. With this vital new book, public services librarians will gain a better understanding of the unique nature of serials, especially concerning their acquisition and cataloguing, and technical services librarians will gain a clearer view of the problems involved in interpreting the record for the user. Serials and Reference Services provides a wealth of information that will help the cataloguer who must create a record out of a dizzying change of titles, volumes, and frequency; the reference librarian who must interpret the record for the user; the bibliographer who must select titles; the manager who will be viewing the new formats for serials; and the administrator who needs an overview in order to pull disparate services together into a functioning whole. Automation is also explored and finally, a look at the core collection--newspapers, comic books, and poetry magazines--gives an eclectic ending to the volume. Tillie Krieger, Peter Hernon, David C. Heisser, David C. Taylor, and Laura Peritore are among the well-known contributors to the book.