Acquiring From Secondary/Used Sources: Money Saver or Time Sink
Poster presented at the Annual ALA Conference 2009 in Chicago, IL.
Abstract
Between 2004 and 2008, Morris Library’s monographic budget has been reduced by over $400,000, a fifty percent reduction between those two years. The increase in serial prices forced the shifting of monograph funds to the serials budget. Despite this shift, the increase in serials costs combined with an otherwise flat budget resulted in two serials’ cancellation projects in a span of four years.
Faced with these economic realities, the acquisitions unit at Southern Illinois University’s Morris Library has sought alternative schemas to save money. One decision was to consider purchasing materials from secondary and used-book sources. For FY09, a database was constructed of purchases to track how much money was saved buying from these resources versus buying from commercial vendors. The authors then tracked how often the preservation unit within the library was consulted to determine whether the materials were in acceptable condition and/or could be reasonably repaired. From this tracking, we hoped to determine and evaluate the trade-offs between the money saved and the additional burden placed on Preservation resulting from this approach to purchasing.