Hi Julie,
There are issues you might want to consider with a rare book approval
workflow because the unit price tends to be high. Our five special
collections areas occasionally accept items on review mailed or
hand-delivered by vendors. I try to discourage the practice, but it
goes on.
First, the library is responsible for the items while they are in our
possession. If there is a discrepancy between items sent for review
and what the curator says they have in hand (as happened to one curator a
few years ago), the amount of money in question can be large.
Nothing is encumbered until a retention decision is made. Some
curators have been slow to notify us of their retention decisions (or
that they have items in hand at all) so that we can build a p.o. for
those items. That is a concern for acquisitions because the process
is undocumented until the p.o. is created. If your budget is in
good shape, it may be less of a problem. We found some curators had
eyes larger than their budgets, which necessitated having to spread
payments over multiple fiscal years to pay for items they accepted on
approval. The cost of shipping and insuring returns should also be
factored in. From an acquisitions and security viewpoint, firm
orders are best. Of course, curators would much rather have the
approval option!
If you set up a plan, I'd recommend getting agreement from curators that
they notify you of a retention decision within a set number of
days.
For auctions, if an agent is purchasing on your behalf, try to roll the
purchase price and auction fees into one check. Otherwise, they can
be split onto two p.o.'s (here, both are paid for by the book fund
ordering the item.) A curator should understand fees up front
(always printed in the sale catalogs and website), so whatever their
budget is will include both their highest bid amount and the auction
fees. Hope that helps.
Marsha
Marsha J. Hamilton
Associate Professor and Head, Monographs Department
The Ohio State University Libraries
Room 5782
610 Ackerman Road
Columbus, Ohio 43202-4500 USA
(614) 247-7461 - ph.
(614) 292-2015 - fax
hamilton.8@osu.edu
-----------------------------------------------
At 03:51 PM 9/28/2008, you wrote:
Hi, all,
We have a new curator of rare books,
and he'd like to institute an approval process for purchasing rare books
and other archival items. In other words, when he works with dealers,
he'd have them send him things (notified in advance) for him to peruse,
and he'd have the option to buy them or not.
We have not done this in
the past; all special collections orders were essentially firm orders. Do
you folks do this? Could you please detail the process? Do you send a PO
in advance? Do you see any security issues? Anything else I should
know?
Also, can you give
me details in how you handle auctions - fees, how to pay which parts,
etc?
Thanks,
Julie
Julie C. Blake
Serials & Electronic Resources Acquisitions Coordinator
Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University
Ph: 410-516-8331
Fax: 410-516-8163
julie.blake@jhu.edu
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Received on Tue Oct 07 2008 - 18:21:00 EDT