From: Jim Niessen <lijpn_at_LIB.TTU.EDU>
We tried a preprocessed "approval plan" at Texas Tech a few years
ago. I was one of the folks who didn't like it, and we abandoned
the experiment after the trial period.
In addition to Tom Izbicki's point that you need to keep the
vendor honest by checking (especially true with specialized
approval plans where the vendor may take advantage of presumed
limits in language/subject skills), I would add these points:
1. How is your approval plan funded? If the selector doesn't
"pay" for books kept, then s/he has little motivation to return
books. In this case you would be wrong to conclude from a low
return rate that the profile is fine.
2. Even if the profile is fine, it is good policy to obligate
selectors to monitor what comes in for current awareness, not
just looking at bib records but examining the books to observe
scholarly trends and publishers' performance.
Dr. James P. Niessen
Librarian for History & Foreign Languages
Texas Tech University Libraries
Lubbock, TX 79429-0002
tel: 806-742-2236, fax: 806-742-1964
Received on Fri Jun 01 2001 - 09:49:44 EDT