Library Acquisition

Library acquisitions is the department of a library responsible for the selection and purchase of
materials or resources. The department may select vendors, negotiate consortium pricing, arrange
for standing orders, and select individual titles or resources.
Libraries, both physical and digital, usually have four common broad goals that help dictate these
responsibilities. These goals are significant to libraries in order to maintain the basic principle of
access.
1. To acquire material as quickly as possible
2. To maintain a high level of accuracy in all work procedures
3. To keep work processes simple in order to achieve the lowest possible unit cost
4. To develop close, friendly working relationships with other library units and vendors
There are generally five steps taken in order to acquire material for a library collection, whether
physical or digital.
1. Request processing
2. Verification
3. Ordering
4. Reporting (fiscal management)
5. Receiving orders
There are eight types of acquisition methods followed by libraries:
1. Firm orders Orders that are determined by name specifically. For example, a specific
book, textbook, or journal that the library wants.
2. Standing orders Open orders for all titles that fit a particular category or subject. For
example, these are usually developed for serials and the library knows that it will want
anything published in that particular series. A benefit to this style of ordering is that it is
automatic--the acquisitions department does not have to order the next in series.
3. Approval plans Similar to standing orders except they cover quite a few topic areas,
are sent from the vendor, and the library is only charged for the specific titles that they
accept into their collection. Under these circumstances the library is free to return
anything it does not wish to add to its collections. A benefit to this style of ordering is that
the acquisitions department can sometimes make better decisions with the materials in
hand versus an order form.
4. Blanket orders Largely a combination of both a firm order and an approval plan.
Blanket orders are the library making a commitment to purchase all of something. For
example, a library makes a contract with a certain publisher or vendor and will purchase
everything that this publisher or vendor has available in regards to a topic. A benefit to
this style of ordering is an automatic acquisition of materials for a particular field, which
can be especially beneficial to specialized or academic libraries.
5.Subscriptions Generally utilized for journals, newspapers, or other serials that a
library will acquire. Like standing and blanket orders, a library only has to develop a

contract once with a vendor or publisher and the items are automatically delivered when
printed. Often, subscriptions are for a specific length of time and must be renewed at the
end of the contract.
6. Leases Contracts that allow access to particular resources for a period of time. Leases
are most commonly utilized with electronic resources such as databases, journals, and
web-based materials. The library is paying for access to the material versus paying for
ownership of the material.
7. Gifts In some cases libraries may allow gifts that people give to the library. It is the
job of the acquisitions department to determine whether or not the gift will be kept and
incorporated into the librarys collection. This method is typically used by large academic
institutions, and the persons giving the gifts are mostly alumni of that institution. A
library's collection development policy usually states whether the library accepts gifts.
8. Exchanges Exchanges can be broken into two subcategories: exchange of unwanted
duplicate/gift materials AND the exchange of new materials between libraries. Again, the
institutions that usually have a process for this type of acquiring are larger academic or
research libraries. This is also a process of consortia. [1]
The American Library Association offers Fundamentals of Acquisitions courses throughout the
year to provide basic procedures for library acquisitions concepts commonly used for all library
formats. <http://www.ala.org/alcts/confevents/upcoming/webcourse/foa/ol_templ>
References
1.

Jump up ^ Evans, G. and Margaret Zarnosky Saponaro. Collection Management Basics:

Library Cataloging
In library and information science, cataloging (or cataloguing) is the process of creating
metadata representing information resources, such as books, sound recordings, moving images,
etc. Cataloging provides information such as creator names, titles, and subject terms that describe
resources, typically through the creation of bibliographic records. The records serve as surrogates
for the stored information resources. Since the 1970s these metadata are in machine-readable
form and are indexed by information retrieval tools, such as bibliographic databases or search
engines. While typically the cataloging process results in the production of library catalogs, it
also produces other types of discovery tools for documents and collections.
Bibliographic control provides the philosophical basis of cataloging, defining the rules for
sufficiently describing information resources to enable users to find and select the most
appropriate resource. A cataloger is an individual responsible for the processes of description,
subject analysis, classification, and authority control of library materials. Catalogers serve as the
"foundation of all library service, as they are the ones who organize information in such a way as
to make it easily accessible".[1]

Six functions of bibliographic control[edit]

Ronald Hagler identified six functions of bibliographic control.[2]

"Identifying the existence of all types of information resources as they are made
available."[3] The existence and identity of an information resource must be known before
it can be found.

"Identifying the works contained within those information resources or as parts of

"Systematically pulling together these information resources into collections in libraries,

"Producing lists of these information resources prepared according to standard rules for
citation."[4] Examples of such retrieval aids include library catalogue, indexes, archival
finding aids, etc.

"Providing name, title, subject, and other useful access to these information resources."[4]
Ideally, there should be many ways to find an item so there should be multiple access
points. There must be enough metadata in the surrogate record so users can successfully
find the information resource they are looking for. These access points should be
consistent, which can be achieved through authority control.

"Providing the means of locating each information resource or a copy of it."[5] In libraries,
the online public access catalogue (OPAC) can give the user location information (a call
number for example) and indicate whether the item is available.

Types of cataloging[edit]

Descriptive cataloging[edit]
"Descriptive cataloging" is a well-established concept in the tradition of library cataloging in
which a distinction is made between descriptive cataloging and subject cataloging, each applying
a set of standards, different qualifications and often also different kinds of professionals. In the
tradition of documentation and information science (e.g., by commercial bibliographical
databases) the concept document representation (also as verb: document representing) have
mostly been used to cover both "descriptive" and "subject" representation. Descriptive cataloging
has been defined as "the part of cataloging concerned with describing the physical details of a
book, such as the form and choice of entries and the title page transcription."[8]
Subject cataloging[edit]
Subject cataloging may take the form of classification or (subject) indexing. Classification
involves the assignment of a given document to a class in a classification system (such as Dewey

Decimal Classification or the Library of Congress Subject Headings). Indexing is the assignment
of characterizing labels to the documents represented in a record.
Classification typically uses a controlled vocabulary, while indexing may use a controlled
vocabulary, free terms, or both.