ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 440 / C&RL News bundled free with every new Macintosh sold or, for others, costs only $49 for four disks and a m anual. W e are truly excited about HyperCard, not only for its low price, but for its simplicity in use, its ease of creating and program m ing new stacks, and in ta i­ loring existing stacks to m eet local needs. I wish to thank the Rutgers University Council for the Improvement of Teaching for their general support of this project as well as Sandy Dennis, an engineering student who provided a great deal of programming assistance, and Deanna Nipp, a col­ league, who provided much feedback and sugges­ tions concerning the program’s content, presenta­ tion, and evaluation. AACR2 rule interpretations by William A. Moffett D irector o f Libraries Oberlin College and Alan D. Boyd Senior Cataloger Oberlin College In the early days of 1982, just prior to the micro­ computer’s conquest of library technical services, three Oberlin College catalogers (Lois Lindberg, Alan Boyd, and Elaine Druesedow) attended a lo­ cal course on mainframe computer text editing. Text editing in the pre-micro age was an unnatural act, a real solution in search of a problem for the non-programmer. But such a problem did confront our catalogers in the wake of AACR2 and the L i­ brary of Congress’ quarterly batches of new rule in­ terpretations. The Oberlin catalogers decided to exercise their new text editing skills in the prepara­ tion of a cumulation of L C ’s rule interpretations. It was clear to Lois, Alan, and Elaine that such a publication would be of interest to many other cat­ alogers, and the project was begun with the intent of making copies available to other libraries on a cost-recovery basis. The resultant, seemingly monstrously-proportioned, 100-page cumulation was reproduced in an initial, somewhat timorous run of 50 copies in the summer of 1982. Lacking the requisite patience to allow the professional litera­ ture’s notice and review functions to build our sub­ scription list, Alan sent an announcement and sam­ ple pages to the heads of cataloging of some 600 major academic and public libraries. The response was immediate. Oberlin’s looseleaf LC R I service had 300 subscriptions by the time the first set of quarterly update sheets came out in October 1982 and 700 subscriptions by the spring of 1983. W hile the inexorable quarterly publication schedule is challenging for our relatively small de­ partment, our word processing and database pro­ grams keep the copy production and mailing work for the new 400-page cumulation on the level of a manageable chore. In the past six years one found­ ing editor, Lois, has retired, and one moved on to another library (Elaine still does the close editing of the revised LC R I texts by mail and maintains an exacting level of accuracy). The growth in our list of subscriptions, although not as dizzying as the ini­ tial wave, has been steady, and now stands at about 1,200, including most of the major catalog­ ing centers of the United States and Canada, as well as LC R I lovers in Europe, Africa, and Asia. The wide acceptance of the Oberlin LC R I quar­ terly updating service even had us feeling a little complacent about our cozy cottage industry when a subscriber’s question this spring took us aback: “Is LC taking over your publication?” This wasn’t the big bad wolf; however, some very heavy hitting competition had indeed arrived on the scene. The Library of Congress Cataloging Distribution Ser­ vice has, after seven years of experience in the rule interpretation field, seen fit to bring out its own version of “our” publication. At three times the cost and twice the heft of our publication, LC will still be able to use the clout of the depository system to take over some of our cottage turf. But this govern­ ment/private sector competition will undoubtedly be beneficial to the faithful L C R I user. W e do draw the line, however, at trying to match L C ’s promise to issue a 3-ring binder with its rule inter­ pretations. If you buy our Library o f Congress Rule Inter­ pretations for AACR2, you get to buy your own binder in your favorite color. It’s the Oberlin way. Alan Boyd and Elaine Druesedow, compilers, L ib r a r y o f C ongress R u le In te rp r eta tio n s f o r AACR2: A Cumulation from Cataloging Service Bulletin Numbers 11-40 (Oberlin, Ohio: Oberlin College Library, 1988), ca. 400p. The cost is $24 (additional copies $21; price includes quarterly up­ date sheets for CSB no.41-44). Standing orders for CSB no.45 + accepted any time, from Alan Boyd, Oberlin College Library, Oberlin, OH 44074.