From: LSMITH_at_ColoradoCollege.edu
About 10 days ago I posted the following query to the list [COLLDV-L no.
1952] and received a number of replies which I have summarized and/or
excerpted below. (As you will see, the most frequent suggestion was to try
Yankee Book Peddler.) Thanks again to all who responded.
Leroy Smith
Colorado College
ORIGINAL QUERY:
>I work at a small, liberal arts college (less than 2000 students; 400,000
>monographs). We are discussing the possibility of using some sort of approval
>plan and/or jobber to help us keep our reference collection current. Does
>anyone out there know if such a thing exists? Any recommendations or caveats?
>Our expenditures each year are not enormous, and I'm not sure any of the
>vendors will pay attention to us. What do you think?
>
*****************
From: IN%"mg29_at_evansville.edu" "Marvin C. Guilfoyle" 15-FEB-1999 07:23:59.96
Subj: Reference Approval Plan
I believe that you're about the size we are. My preference is standing
orders for the things you order regularly and careful perusal of Choice,
LJ and other appropriate specialized reviewing sources for the rest. The
s.o.'s can be with a vendor or an in-house action date.
Particularly, as we move from paper to electronics, I believe that we
need to have very tight control and the ability to change in mid-year.
We are small enough to be able to take the time to look at each of our
purchases; just because a review says "belongs in all academic library
collections" doesn't really mean WE actually need it; we are
curriculum-driven. This would not be a distinction an approval plan would
make.
I always tell our faculty that we need to order like we are shooting
with a rifle not a shotgun. Admittedly, my approval plan experience was
years ago at a large university, so maybe they can now be "aimed" better
than they used to be, but I believe in labor-intensive collection
development in small libraries.
Marvin Guilfoyle
Acquisitions & Collection Development Librarian
University of Evansville Library
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From: IN%"rschinke_at_UNMC.EDU" 15-FEB-1999 07:56:56.11
Subj: RE: approval plan
We use Matthews for our approval plan - happy with the service.
http://www.mattmccoy.com
Majors (I've also used at a smaller institution...our collection numbered at
5,000) also has an approval plan.
http://www.majors.com
Both of these deal with more medical but Majors is expanding - you can always
talk with them.
General academic - try Yankee Book Peddler - http://www.ybp.com
They have an approval plan also. Phone: 800-258-3774
Rose Schinker
University of NE Medical Center
**************************
From: IN%"mjones_at_csf.edu" "Maryhelen Jones" 15-FEB-1999 10:08:40.44
You might try contacting Yankee Book Peddler or Academic Book Center.
When I was at Central Michigan University we interviewed both vendors
for setting up such approval profiles. We ended up continuing with
Yankee. I know that Colorado Collge is much smaller than Central
Michigan University, but what impressed me was the scalability of
Yankee's operations. I think they are worth talking to. Our main
contact there was Bob Nardini.
Good Luck,
Maryhelen Jones
**************************
From: IN%"eric.carpenter_at_oberlin.edu" "Eric Carpenter" 15-FEB-1999
12:28:41.09
I'd be glad to exchange thoughts on this if you like. I've had experience
with Blackwell and now Yankee Book Peddler approval plans here at Oberlin
and years ago at SUNY at Buffalo.
I'd urge you to seriously consider setting up an approval plan for selection
forms. You can choose subject areas, publishers, and non-subject parameters
suited to your needs. Then you can receive selection forms on the plan to
receive announcements of titles you may want to firm order. The plan can
include just reference type materials or broader coverage of few or many
subject areas.
We've used both selection forms and a book approval plan here at Oberlin for
years with very good results. OhioLINK, to which Oberlin belongs, is
working with Yankee on a statewide approval plan. It includes large and
small academic libraries.
****************************
From: IN%"julia.robinson.1_at_ohiou.edu" "Julia Robinson" 15-FEB-1999
14:52:09.90
Don't know how much of this would help you, but we've recently begun a
Slip Plan with Yandee Book Peddlar and one of the options they've given us
is to update any part of our collection we like, including retroactive
collecting (which can be very tricky). YBP was selected from 3 finalist
vendors by the OhioLINK Consortium here in Ohio. Large Universities use
the Approval Plan, but smaller schools like us (2,000 studets on a branch
campus) also are able to participate in a way that is better for us - and
provides a discount.
***************************
From: IN%"starckm_at_milwaukee.tec.wi.us" "Martha Starck" 16-FEB-1999
12:13:59.08
At Milwaukee Area Technical College, we are a community college with about
70,000 volumes among our 4 campuses, 35,000 of those at the main Milwaukee
Campus. For 3 years now, we have had an approval plan with Yankee Books and
are generally satisfied with it. You can profile as broadly or specifically
as you like, choose content levels from popular to general academic to
advanced academic or professional, and choose to have books sent, or just
notification slips, or a combination. Our Yankee rep mentioned they have
one university that uses them for just popular fiction and nothing else, so
you can profile for as small an area as you like.At our main campus, we
profiled for slips only and we select perhaps 1/2-2/3 of what is sent. The
approval plan is great for keeping current in subjects that change quickly
such as computing, but some of our selectors would prefer to see reviews in
the more academic liberal arts subjects. Generally, the approval plan
greatly speeds up the selection process.
From: IN%"JSchuele_at_YBP.com" "Jannette Schuele" 16-FEB-1999 13:06:37.33
I am the Yankee Book Peddler field
representative for the region including Colorado.
One very effective solution to your concern might be a notification slip
plan with YBP for titles which we profile in our approval program to which
we assign a "reference" tag.
We handle ca. 50,000 titles annually under our approval program, making it
the most comprehensive such program by a wide margin. Each book is
carefully described, book in hand, and receives many descriptive tags in
addition to standard LC cataloging. One of those parameters is a tag for
any of a long list of reference types
Any or all of those terms can be combined with other parameters, including
LC subclass, to generate a notification slips each time we profile a titles
that fits a library's particular interests, as described in a profile we
developing in working with the library. Needless to say, we can also
supply these titles, or some subset of them, as profiled books, but the
total volume, as you know all too well, is very large, so a slip plan is
probably the best approach overall, at least initially.
If this sounds useful to you, I can easily have a sample batch of
notification slips sent along to you, covering a three month window,
perhaps, to give you an idea what such a program would generate.
Thank you for your interest.
Jannette Schuele
Jannette Schuele
Regional Manager
Collection Management & Development Group
Yankee Book Peddler
360-835-5715 (phone/fax)
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From: IN%"RobinsM_at_exi.scc.losrios.cc.ca.us" "Robinson, Mary Ann"
16-FEB-1999 18:51:48.27
We aren't as small as CC (13,000 FTES), but your budget is certainly larger.
I have begun to look into approval plans for our community college and have
been told by more than one vendor that they are interested no matter the
size of your budget. We don't currently use, but I've had recommended to me
Yankee Book Peddler http://www.ypb.com Our main vendor is Baker and Taylor,
and they've indicated interest, too.
LSMITH_at_ColoradoCollege.edu
Received on Wed Mar 03 1999 - 19:05:15 EST