62/ Noleson Operolions Acquisifionsof Hord-to-FindBockfiles of ChinesePeriodicols from lhe People'sRepublic of Chino PelerZhou This Ttuperrlescribes the Unioersity of lowa Libraries' experi,encein purchas- inghard-to-findbackfiles of Chinese Tteriodi.calsfrom China. It sheds light . on hou small foreign-language collections in North America can be greatly enhanced by u.sing u norsel acquisition strateglj und bq understanding the different book mnrket conditions in third-uorld countri.es. The exTterience summarized here is unique in.somenspects tnd cun be usedbq other libruries in similar cooperatioe projects in the future .al, qood Chinese collection must have a Due to historical reasonsand the con- strong serialscomponent ofjournals, pe- dition of publishing in the People'.s Re- riodicals, government publications, and public of China, backliles of such serial conf'erence proceedings that are cla^ssi{ied publications in Chinese are mostly out-of'- in the lbllowing three categories: print today. Microlilms of Chinese peri- 1. National publications: those pub- odical backfiles are usually limited to only lished by major academicpublishers, a lew titles with limited ipans. The ram- national universities, national re- page of China'.s Cultural Revolution was search institutions, and government also a cause fbr the rarity ol such materi- agencies. Such publications are dis- als, a^sit took a toll on all Chinese peri- tributed nationwide in China. odicals published from the mid-1960s to 2. Provincial-level nublications: those the late 1970s and earlier. It is almost nublished bv research institutions at impossible today to get complete back- lhe provinci'al level, colleges and uni- runs o{ Chinese periodicals in large quan- versities of various provinces, and tities through the commercial book market. provincial government agencies, From 1993 to 1995, the University of which are usually circulated within Iowa Libraries successl'ullyacquired com- provinces in China. nlete backruns ofmore than {bur hundred 3. Local publications: those published hard-to-lind Chinese periodicals in more at the municipal or county level, usu- than seven thousand volumes with the ally with a limited circulation, such as help of {bur major Chinese libraries. With county gazetteersor municipal statis- China'.sopen-door policy and broadening tical reports. economic re{brm, Iibraries in China today PereR ZHou is East Asian Librarian and Adjunct Assistant Prol'essor of Chinese, University of Iowa ([email protected]). Manuscript received July 12, 1995; accepted {br publicaUon September 12, 1995. LRTS o 40(1) o Notes on Operations /63 are- more independent, entrepreneurial, help, becauseour plan was to systemati- and accessibleto the outside world. This cally enlarge and enhance our Chinese has created an opportunity fbr coopera- periodicals collection by acquiring the tion between U.S. and Chinese libraiie.. iomplete backruns o{'alt toui hunired- plus titles, which at that time could only be lbund in maior Chinese libraries such as the Chinese'National Library (Beiling Library), Shanghai Municipal Libiary, and some natioial Chinese university ii- braries in China. greatly enhanced by using a novel acrlui- Cost was another {bctor. One commer- sition strategy and by understanding the cial vendor olI'ered to microfilm the Chi- diflerent book markei contlitions in titrd- nese back{iles{br us {iom the collections world countries. The experiencesumma- ofthe Chinese researchlibraries, but the rized here is unique in some aspectsand cost fbr micro{ilming f'ar exceeded the can be used by other libraries in similar fulding we received- {br Chinese peri- cooperative projects in the future. odicals, and the time required lbr a micro- {ilming project would have been much longer BecxcnouNp than our grant period. Given these I'actors, we believed that the most cost-efl'ectiveway of'obtaining the Chinese backliles was to acquire them directly from the existing collections of some maior Chineselibraries. We learned that Chinese libraries have a tradition of fbr the purchase and processingof hard- buying and storing multiple copiesol Chi- toJind ",,ne bhinese and Athcan n"eriodical.s n e.seferiodit.als, lbi circu'lation,one including current titles and their back- Ibr back-up of circulation, and one firr runs. With this lunding, the University o{' permanent preservation.lt would be rnost Iowa Libraries planneii to add more than iesirable il'we could purchase some of fbur hundred current Chinese periodicals those duplicate collecti,ons{rom Chinese and their complete backruns i-n humani- libraries.- ties, social sci6nces,and Chinese health sciences.Many of the backruns of those Chinese periodical.s dated back to the 1950s. We {irst contacted the three larqest commercial bool< vendors in Chinl- China National Publishing Industry Trad- ing Corporation, China International Book Trading Corporation, and China Na- Mnrrtotor"ocy tional Puhlii.ations Import and Export Corporation-and solicited their help in We made aproposal to ten Chineselibrar- getting these materials fbr us. We leamed ies, in which we stated our interest in that they could get us only small segments purchasing their duplicate periodicals at a ofbackruns liom used book storesln Bei- price reasonable to both sides. Those ten jing. Those Chinese vendors indicated Chinese libraries were: that it was irnpo.ssibleto acrluire the com- The Chine.seNational Library (Beijing plete backluns ol'all fbur. hundred-plus Library) periodicals we wanted, becausesuch ma- Beijing University Library terials were mrt available on the Chinese Fudan University Library book market. It was obvious that the lim- Wuhan University Library ited fragrnents of Chinese iournals that Zhor rgshan Un iversity Library vendors coultl provide us were of little Jilin University Llbrany 64/ LRTS . 40(1) . Zhou Northwest University Library Hubei University of Medical Sciences Library Beijing Xehe University of Medical Sciences Library Beijing Medical University Library Mo.st of the libraries responded posi- backruns, together with a block price for tively to our proposal and expressed their willingness to participate in the project. We then sent them our "shopping-list" of Chinese periodicals, requesting them to searchit againsttheir holdings and report the search'results to us. This Eibliogtaphic also set a six-month deaclline lbr delivery checking revealed that most of the ten antl agreed to make a payment uPon re- libraries had the materials we wanted. We ceipt of the materials.In the end, all ma- then selected {bur of the ten libraries as terials arrived on time. our partners, ba^sedon how complete their duplicate collections were. The lbur li Rrsur,rs braries were: Beijing University Library, Fudan University Library, Wuhan Univer- Altogether in the pro.iect, we acquired sity Library, and Hubei University of Medi- overseven thousandvolumes, which com- cal Sciences Library. By inviting these fbur prised complete backruns of over Ibur libraries to participate in this project, we hundred Chineseperiodicals. The fbllow- amongthem to help ing is a cost analysis. created a competition "As lower the cost through a bid&ng process. shown in table 1, by huying directly We also made it clear {iom the beginning tiom the Chinese libraries, we achieved that we would onlybe interested in purchas- an averagesavings of $I5 per bound vttl- ing their duplicates, not their single master ,rrn.. with the conventional ",rrrrn"red copies, and that the prices {br those materi- purcfiaseo'l'snch materials through book als would be lhir to them. vendors. That amounts to more than Duringthe summersof 1993and 1994, $105.000 for over seven thousand vol- the University of Iowa Libraries sent its umes of Chinese periodicals,not to men- representative to the {bur libraries to tion the {'act that those 611-61-print mate- meet with their administrators, negotiate rials could only be {bund in the existing terms of the contracts and prices, inspect collections of a f'ew Chinese libraries. On the physical conditions o{ their back{iles, the other hand. to the Chinese libraries and sign the contracts. who were our partners, though their unit TABLE I CorutrlntsoNoF Cosrs ANDTIME Prrrch*e Purchase through through Vendors Chinese Libraries Acquisitions rate 30To 997o Time required lbr completing the project unknown within a year Price per volume/year $20 $12 Binding cost per volume/year $5 None (included in price per volume) Shipping and handling per volume/year $2 None (included in price per volume) Total: (cost per volume) $27 $12 LRTS o 40(1) o Notes on Operations /65 price per volume was low, the total pro- ties by adding much-needecl equipment ceedsforthese voluminous back{ileswere such as photocopiers, f'ax machines, and large and pro{itable because journal sub- computers. scriptions for re.search librarie.s in China The Univer.sity of lowa Librarie.s plan {rom the 1950sto the 1980swere cheap. to make backfiles of Chinese rreriodicals Thev could easilvoffset the cost ofacquir- available to scholars and rese^archersin ing and maintaining tho.sematerial.s iver the United States by entering biblio- the years and still come out with a large graphic inlbrmation {br them into the na- prolit margin. tional databasesofthe Research Libraries This retrospective acquisition proiect Inlbrmation Network and the OCLC On- was unconventional in several ways. It by- line Computer Library Center, Inc., in- passed vendors and directly accessedthe cluding complete holdings information. sources of'such