Acquisitions and Collection Development Automation: Future Directions
| Pages | 45-53 |
| Date | 01 January 1983 |
| Published date | 01 January 1983 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb047480 |
| Author | Brian Aveney,Luba Heinemann |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Acquisitions and Collection Development Automation:
Future Directions
BRIAN AVENEY and LUBA HEINEMANN
Developments in the area of automated acquisi-
tions in libraries over the past ten years have been
many and varied. Libraries today have the option of
choosing among a number of off-the-shelf systems
including turnkey mini- and microcomputer-based
systems, large central network systems and, more re-
cently, distributed systems which try to make the
best of both worlds.
As users have become more experienced with
automated acquisitions and system developers gained
a clearer notion of user needs, systems have under-
gone a process of fine-tuning. Fund accounting has
grown quite sophisticated, with a wide range of re-
porting options available; most recently, the Innovacq
system has introduced on-demand graphing of fund
reports. Orders are being transmitted to vendors
over telephone lines; bibliographic data from network
files are being captured for
use
in local files. In-process
files can be queried online; many systems offer pre-
order searching of both catalog and in-process files
simultaneously. Management reports include regular
analyses of vendor performance.
All of the roughly two dozen off-the-shelf sys-
tems available to libraries today are online as opposed
to the batch processing model that predominated a
few years ago.
This paper will explore features of automated
acquisitions systems now implemented, and discuss
features that might be implemented in the next few
Brian Aveney is Director of Research and Devel-
opment at Blackwell North America and a DLIS
candidate at U.C.-Berkeley. While this paper was
written, he was working in the office of Research at
OCLC on a leave-of-absence from BNA. Luba Heine-
mann is User Advisor for the Acquisitions Subsystem
and a member of the Acquisitions Project Team at
OCLC. Prior to joining OCLC in 1981, she had
worked on the Regional Support System at SOLINET,
and as a cataloger at Alma College.
The ideas expressed in this paper do not neces-
sarily reflect the opinions of OCLC or BNA. The
authors would like to thank Chet Gough, Neal Kaske,
Jim Long, and Doug Perkins of OCLC and Jim
Quick, Don Satisky, and Scott Smith of BNA for
their contributions to the thinking that led to this
paper.
years,
such as automated support for the selection
and collection development processes. In some cases,
features reviewed are currently the subject of dis-
cussion among systems developers; in most cases,
these features build upon groundwork laid by current
offerings.
Distributed Acquisitions
The distributed systems approach builds in three
accomplishments: the development of large central
shared databases, communications networks, and the
availability of low-cost distributed computing power
as exemplified by the personal computer.1
The past two years have seen the emergence of
distributed systems in libraries. UTLAS and Innova-
tive Interfaces have pooled resources to offer an
automated acquisitions package combining access to
UTLAS's seven million record database with the
sophisticated local capabilities of the microprocessor-
based Innovacq system. Turnkey systems, such as
those offered by DataPhase and CLSI, can tap central
databases to capture bibliographic data for in-process
files held on minicomputer systems, subject to appli-
cable copyright restrictions. Blackwell Technical Ser-
vices (Oxford) announced development of distributed
periodical and book acquisition systems at the ALA
conference in San Antonio. WLN, RLIN, and OCLC
have all suggested movement toward more distributed
architectures for acquisitions systems in the future.2
The long-term result of the shift to distributed
architectures will be to store information on the basis
of access in order to reduce telecommunication costs.
While it will remain economical to search and capture
data from centralized bibliographic files, it will be in-
creasingly sensible to store information of local inter-
est, e.g., fund data, on local devices. One implication,
which we explore below, may be a proliferation of
the kinds of information available through central
systems.
Related to the issue of distribution, in the way it
treats access to information as the organizing prin-
ciple, is a simultaneous trend towards integrated
systems.3 Since our focus is on the acquisitions
function specifically, we will do no more than ac-
knowledge this trend.
SUMMER 1983 45
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