FOCUS ON SERIALS.

This article discusses the author's views on how a subscription agency can provide assistance to collection development personnel through customized serials management reports. Databases' capability to produce customize reports can greatly aid customers in the selection and deselection of serial titles. Since many libraries use the Library of Congress (LC) classification system to separate titles by subject, we offer a report listing a customer's titles on order alphabetically within each two letter LC grouping. If a customer needs a breakdown of the library's serials by academic department on campus, several helpful reports can be produced by using a unique six-character alpha-numeric code to identify each of their titles on order by subject, fund, cost center or department. Two customized Index Reports offer the indexing information collection development librarians need. One indicates where each journal is indexed or abstracted, while the second lists the library's holdings by each index or abstracting service. Budget Analysis Report splits a customer's list into foreign and domestic titles, applies the relevant inflation factor to each and provides a realistic estimate for the coming subscription year.