Hello,
The University of Wisconsin Madison has recently instituted recommended
weekly minimum and maximum order limits for our selectors to send to
Technical Services.
We've done this in order to ensure a constant, regular flow of orders to
the acquisitions staff as well as to allow the materials budget to be spent
evenly throughout the year. We are trying to ensure that our budget is not
spent during an end of the year "crunch period."
The limits were calculated by fund based on the numbers of orders sent to
technical services last year. While our final numbers are not scientific,
we did factor in the current strength of the dollar against other
currencies as well as inflationary increases for our serials.
The order staff are required to keep a count of orders by fund submitted to
them during the course of the week and those pending at the end of the
week. We also generate a weekly order report from our integrated library
system that totals the number of orders placed by the staff by fund.
If a selector does not meet the minimum threshold, I remind them to send
more orders to Technical Services. If they flood us with orders, I remind
them to regulate their order selection.
I am wondering if any other libraries have explored minimum/maximum limits
for order placement. Please tell me how you handle this and what successes
or failures you've had.
Thank you,
Karl
Karl E. Debus
Acquisitions Coordinator
General Library System
University of Wisconsin - Madison Libraries
Phone: (608) 262-2619
FAX: (608) 262-4861
Received on Thu Oct 26 2000 - 11:11:27 EDT