The Acquisitions Tool Belt--Acquisitions' Next Wave

Ruth Fischer and Rick Lugg make sense of vendor systems

By Ruth Fischer and Rick Lugg (netConnect) -- netConnect, 7/15/2005

Acquisitions librarians have many online tools to choose from; so many, in fact—and with so many different functionalities—that just evaluating them has become a challenge. [For more on the acquisitions marketplace, see "Acquisitions' Next Step," LJ 7/05.]

This chart isolates 28 critical functions associated with selection and acquisitions in public and in academic libraries, including copy cataloging and shelf preparation. As depicted by dots on the chart, major suppliers have, to varying degrees, stepped in to offer support for all of them. When well implemented, these vendor services and systems can streamline library workflows and free staff time for other critical tasks. Twenty book vendors—and an additional four vendor-neutral systems—are compared here in relation to these core functions and in their ability to supply nonmainstream titles such as not-yet-published, out-of-print, non-English, AV products, and ebooks.

Honing in

To make the chart manageable, we focused on primarily English-language book and ebook vendors that serve the public and academic library markets. European vendors, subscription agents, AV vendors, medical book vendors, and publishers are not included. Please note that many of those excluded do offer many of the high-level systems and services that have become so critical to library workflow. We have also excluded approval, blanket, and standing-order functions in the interest of emphasizing more labor-intensive firm orders, those items selected and ordered one at a time. Finally, electronic resource management systems (ERMs) have been excluded as they warrant their own discussion (and chart!).

The four highlighted four vendor-neutral systems (Bowker's Books in Print, Cornell's ITSO, OCLC's WorldCat Collection Analysis, and TLC's Online Selection & Acquisitions) collectively represent a new development in the market. Clearly, these have emerged to address the problem revealed by the data: the proliferation of interfaces and products competing for the collection development and acquisitions desktop. Because they are not suppliers, they have a limited postorder role and therefore remain partial solutions. Nevertheless, their consolidated approach offers some promise for increased efficiency.

Moving target

This field is in continual motion. New features under development are indicated by asterisks and highlighted in yellow. And, of course, not all "dots" are equal. Some tools and services are more comprehensive and more fully integrated than others, and some service dots represent third-party partnerships. Their approaches differ, but each aspires to be the first-stop shopping option for libraries.

Finally, although the selection process for ebooks can be very similar to print, the acquisition of electronic content is dissimilar. Physical processing tasks, for example, are unnecessary, as are the conventional models of claiming and RUSH ordering. Consider these inconsistencies in relation to the services provided by the four ebook vendors listed: EBL, ebrary, netLibrary and Overdrive. We decided to include them because they offer individual titles for sale rather than pure subscription access. However, this is a grey area. There may be subscription-like fees associated with these platforms, and some ebook products allow libraries to select the titles that make up a package. The four featured here follow most closely the established selection and acquisitions workflow that libraries use.

ILS-NEUTRAL TOOLS FOR SELECTION AND ACQUISITIONS

Core Functions		Abebooks	Alibris	Amazon	Ambassador	B&T	B&N	Book House	Blackwell's	Bowker BIP	Brodart	BWI	Coutts	Eastern	EBL	ebrary	Emery- Pratt	Ingram	Cornell ITSO	Midwest	netLibrary	OCLC WCA	Overdrive	TLC OSA	YBP
Search for New Titles		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•		•	•	•	•	•	•
	Adult	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•
	Juvenile	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•		•			•	•		•	•	•	•	•	•
	Not Yet Published			•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•			•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•
	Non-English Monographs	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•		•
	AV		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•			•	•				•	•	•	•
	eBooks			•		•			•	•		•	•		•	•			*		•		•		*
	Out-of-Print	•	•	•	•	•		•	•	•		•	•	•		•	•	•				•			•
Compare Titles with Holdings						•				•	•	•						*	•			•		•
Recommend Lists				•	•	•	•		•	•	•	•	•					•		•	•	•	•	•	•
Compare Lists with Holdings										•								•				•		•
Generate New Title Alerts (paper)					•	•			•		•	•	•	•			•	•		•					•
Generate New Title Alerts (electronic)			•	•	•	•			•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•		•		•
Link to Extended Metadata			•	•	•	•	•		•	•	•	•	•		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•
Link to Reviews				•		•	•		•	•	•	•	•	•		•		•		•			•	•	•
Track Availability and Price		•	•	•	•	•	•		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•		•	•	*	•	•	•
Support Electronic Selection			•	•	•	•			•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	*	•	•	•
Coordinate Electronic Selection			•		•	•			•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•		•	*	•	•	•
Detect Duplicates					•	•		•	•		•	•	•	•		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•
Generate PreOrder Bib Records						•		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•		•	•	•	•				•	•
Generate Orders		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•		•	•		•	•	•
Generate Rush Orders			•	•	•	•	•	•	•		•	•	•	•		•	•	•		•	•		•		•
Assign Local Order Details			•		•	•			•		•	•	•					•							•
Validate Local Order Details											•	•	•	•	•		•	•	•	•				•	•
Generate Order Confirmation Records					•	•			•		•	•	•				•	•		•			•		•
Monitor Consortial Purchases									•			•										•	•		•
Perform Peer Comparisons											•	•										•			•
Track Open Orders		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•			•	•	•	na	na	•	•		•	•		•	•	•
Edit/Cancel Open Orders		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•			•			na	na	•	•		•			•		•
Generate MARC Records				*	•	•		•	•		•	•	•		•	•	•	•		•	•		•	•	•
Customize MARC Records				*	•	•		•	•		•	•	•		•		•	•		•	•		•	•	•
Scan Barcode into the MARC Record				*	•	•		•	•		•	•	•	•	na	na	•	•		•	na		na		•
Generate Custom Spine Labels				*	•	•		•	•		•	•	•		na	na	•	•		•	na		na		•
Generate Electronic Invoices			*		•	•		•	•		•	•	•	•	•	•		•		•			•		•
Generate Management Reports			*		•	•		•	•		•	•	•		•	•	•	•		•	•	•	•	•	•
Gray = book vendors Green = ebook vendors Blue = vendor-neutral systems Yellow asterisks = features/services under development NA = not applicable