Serials, one of the more complicated areas of library technical endeavors, has lacked the benefit of standards for a long time. Even now, with standards beginning to be available, the majority of institutions are not working within standard serials formats. A survey to determine the use of serials standards in libraries was conducted in 1988 by the American Library Association, Resources and Technical Services Division, Serials Section, Committee to Study Serials Standards. In the spring of 1988 a survey was sent to a group encompassing the Association of Research Libraries members, CONSER participants, United States Newspaper Program participants, Microform Project libraries, and some vendors and librarians who attended the Committee meetings on a regular basis. The survey questionnaire assessed the current level of serials standards awareness of librarians and vendors. Topics included the type of serials systems used, standards relevant to serials control and union listing and whether or not they are implemented, types and levels of training staff received in the application of standards, benefits of the standards, and areas where standards are most needed.

A large part of the mission of the National Library of Medicine is to collect, index, and disseminate the world's biomedical literature. Until recently, this related only to serial and monographic material, but as new forms of information appear responsibility for bibliographic control of these also must be assumed by the National Library of Medicine. This paper briefly describes the type of information that will be necessary before descriptive cataloging of computer-based educational materials can be attempted.

A library's subscription profile should reflect the needs of library clientele, but creating such a profile can require extensive clerical work. It was found that a subscription agent's computerized facilities could be used to facilitate a program of this type by providing initial serial listings for use in a survey, by manipulating data obtained from such a survey, and by producing listings identifying resulting serial titles and costs according to requesting disciplines. The data base thus created is updated as subscriptions are added or deleted so that the profile remains current.

The heart of the library lies in its collections, and collections have to be built continuously. Budgetary constraints perforce stress the need for better defined collection development policy, although the ultimate goal should be an improvement of library service rather than any reduction of library cost. A written collection development policy facilitates a consistent and balanced growth of library resources, and a dynamic policy is one that evolves as the institution grows. Such a policy is based on the understanding of the needs of the community it serves and seeks to define and delimit the goals and objectives of the institution. A collection development statement is not a substitute for book selection; it charts the forest but does not plant the trees. It should be used as a guidepost, not a crutch. Book selection requires judgment and the courage to choose. A sound collection development policy, on the other hand, provides the necessary rational without which a collection may grow amoebalike, by means of pseudopodia.

This paper was conceived in the context of the "RTSD Guidelines for the Formulation of Collection Development Policies." It describes fundamental qualities of policy applicable to all kinds of libraries and recommends a step-by-step process leading to the successful realization of policy planning. Placing an emphasis on the values of the process itself, the paper also suggests implications for collection development personnel and for the library as an organization, when a working policy is adopted.

The rehabilitation of physically disabled persons is an expanding and interdisciplinary field, and the literature on this topic has grown rapidly in recent years. Bibliographic control of rehabilitation literature is poor, and selection of materials about physically disabled persons can be a difficult undertaking. The present article describes and evaluates various selection tools on the basis of their coverage of rehabilitation literature and their usefulness to academic, public, and special librarians.

In 1981, as in 1980, there was continued discussion of the potential of videodiscs in document storage and retrieval, but little in the way of practical results apart from visual (as opposed to textual) materials. The micrographics industry, on the other hand, introduced new products designed to facilitate the use of microforms, while library and other professional literature reported the advantages of microforms in various types of information storage and retrieval applications. Copier product developments were largely dominated by the announcement of various low-cost plain-paper units from Japan. The Japanese likewise played an important role in the development of facsimile technology, which enjoyed considerably increased acceptance during 1981.