Library Acquisitions: Practice & Theory最新文献

This paper describes the steps taken to adjust the profile for business and economics for an approval plan at Bowling Green State University. It posits that characteristics of business publishing—the role of academic writing in a subject field heavily weighted toward selling books to professionals, the tendency toward buzzwords and managerial panaceas, and the rate and number of titles published—complicate writing an effective approval profile for business. The paper enumerates situational factors and steps taken, including the importance of vendor-library cooperation, in developing a profile that better matched the university user communities.

The evolutionary change that has occurred in the workflow, job assignments, and organization of the acquisitions department at the University Libraries of Notre Dame during the past four years is described. Many changes have occurred not through an administrative mandate but through staff initiative. Convergence is illustrated by the merging of functions through internal reorganization and by collaboration with other departments in carrying out critical functions. The means by which change occurred and the factors most influential in bringing it about are examined. The perceptions of support staff who have been the active agents of change are reported. Finally, the authors speculate about what such methods of meeting the challenge of a changing environment can contribute to academic libraries seeking their “preferred future.”

Acquisitions and serials departments have often been the first to react to changes imposed by the marketplace. These two departments have had strong ties to each other because of the similar nature of the work and problems that are encountered. As technical services departments downsize there has been a trend toward merging these departments. These mergers enable libraries to centralize activities and streamline workflows, which often result in increased efficiency and productivity. Librarians debate whether the functions of technical services departments should be organized by form or function. This article explores the reasons why these historically separate departments are being merged in many libraries, and it addresses the issues that need to be considered in such a merger. Specifically, drawing on the experience of the University of New Mexico, it will address the factors leading to the decision to merge, the planning phase, the implementation process, and the benefits realized.

This interview was conducted at the EBSCO Industries offices in Birmingham, AL, on October 6, 1997. James T. Stephens, President and Chief Executive Officer, EBSCO Industries, and F. Dixon Brooke, Jr., Vice President and Division General Manager, EBSCO Subscription Services, candidly comment on issues such as the current state of the serials industry, electronic journals, customer service, and consortial licensing.

The acquisition of electronic resources presented many new issues for staff at the Texas Tech University Library. Traditional communication pathways between acquisitions and other departments were inadequate to address the increasingly complex questions that were raised in the process of acquiring the electronic resources that were increasingly in demand by the university community. While it was possible to handle decision making for electronic resources through the library’s departmental structure, the process was hampered by a lack of speed and focus. To resolve this problem, six library staff members were brought together to form an electronic resources group (ERG). This cross-functional team is composed of library staff from four different departments, each of whom had experience with different aspects of acquiring electronic resources. Members continue to work within their departments and report to their functional managers, but they also report to the ERG project manager and are expected to contribute substantially to the accomplishment of group goals. This paper describes how Texas Tech has successfully used the cross-functional team approach for managing the acquisition of materials in electronic formats.

The University of Dayton Roesch Library reorganized the collection development and acquisitions departments during 1995 and 1996 in order to improve the collection and make the process of acquiring materials more responsive to the needs of students and faculty. The old organization was department-based, with teaching faculty controlling most of the materials budget. The Associate Director for Technical Services coordinated the funds and supervised acquisitions staff. Perceived imbalances in the collection, student and faculty dissatisfaction with the process, and the desire for public services librarians to have greater influence in collection decisions led to a major reorganization. The new model distributes budget authority among all librarians based on subjects rather than academic departments. It empowers librarians to make purchasing and weeding decisions within their subject areas. Book and periodical acquisitions are combined into a single support unit that reports to the Coordinator and Head of Collection Management. The new organization has streamlined acquisitions processes to make ordering simpler, and the time between ordering and receipt has been shortened. The new model shifts the emphasis from process to service.