GobiWorks

GOBI³

GobiExport

GobiLink

GobiTween

GobiWorks

Contact:  Janet L. Flowers, Head of Acquisitions (janet_flowers@unc.edu)

Davis Library (courtesy of the North Carolina Collection)

Library Organization:  The main library system, officially referred to as the Academic Affairs Library, includes nearly a score of libraries. The system consists of a Graduate Library (Davis) which principally serves the humanities and social sciences and houses the main reference, electronic information, and interlibrary borrowing services. The special collections (Rare Books, North Carolina Collection, Manuscripts, and Maps), housed in Wilson Library, complement the general collections in Davis. The House Undergraduate Library, which is currently under renovation, includes the principal reserve reading materials and nonprint and audiovisual collections. Nearly a dozen branch libraries covering art, botany, chemistry, city and regional planning, mathematical sciences (computer science, mathematics, operations research, statistics, and physics), geological sciences, information and library science, marine sciences, music, public administration, and zoology complete the main library system. The Academic Affairs Library is supported by centralized acquisitions and cataloging services. The University's Health Sciences and Law Libraries are separately administered.

ILS Systems:  Innovative Interfaces (acquisitions, serials) and DRA (cataloging, OPAC, circulation)

Regular GOBI Users:  50

Services Profiled:

Approval Plan shipping records (CatShip)

GobiTween

GobiSmart

Online selection and export of records (GobiSelect)

Electronic ordering

Electronic invoicing (GobiShip)

Lindsay and Howes

Anne McDaniel, Approval Plan Specialist, with a portion of a typical week's approval shipment

For nearly 25 years, approval plans have played a significant role in acquisitions for the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Libraries (UNC-CH). The UNC-CH approval plan, begun in 1977, was the eighth plan established by YBP. UNC-CH's approval services consist of two main approval plans: UPAP (University Press Approval Plan) and LEAP (Library Expedited Approval Plan), which cover scholarly titles from domestic publishers as well from UK and certain other overseas publishers whose titles are distributed in North America. UPAP and LEAP are both subdivided into Humanities and Social Sciences components. There is also a separate plan for distributed Western European publishers. For almost 10 years, UNC-CH has been receiving shipping records along with their approval shipments. The library opts to receive CatShip records, shipping records created from YBP's cataloging database, because of their clean bibliographic information. The CatShip records are loaded into UNC-CH's Innovative Interfaces acquisitions system to create bibliographic records, order records, and electronic invoicing - all with little manual keying.

Part of the Approval Team: Luke Swindler, Social Sciences Bibliographer, the first selector at UNC-CH to take advantage of online review of notification slips. Assisted here by Julie Roach, Approval Plan Specialist, and Betty Meehan-Black, Approval Plan Coordinator.

Some selectors review their notification slips online, but many still review paper slips. However, to achieve maximum efficiency for notification slip shipments, orders of either type are placed directly on GOBI, with no record in the library's acquisitions system until receipt. Slip orders are shipped mixed into the automatic approval shipments, and are treated like new approval receipts.

UNC-CH selectors can take advantage of consortial information when they search GOBI. All of the Triangle Research Library Network libraries (Duke University, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, and North Carolina Central University) can view each other's approval activity and purchases within GOBI. This "GobiTween" service allows selectors to take their colleagues' purchases into consideration when making decisions.

In addition to the large approval plans, UNC-CH has 13 notification slip plans for its departmental libraries. Slip orders for these departmental libraries, as well as other non-approval related orders are placed as firm orders, and comprise approximately 8,000 YBP orders annually. It is this firm order workflow which has undergone the greatest transformation recently. In October 2000, R2 Consulting (a newly formed consulting company consisting of former YBP staff members Ruth Fischer and Rick Lugg) visited UNC-CH. In conjunction with a Task Group, they assisted staff in assessing the firm order work flow and offered suggestions for achieving efficiencies, eradicating duplicative practices, and otherwise tightening up the operation. In reflecting upon this process, Janet Flowers notes that it was an exciting and energizing one because the consultants brought not only knowledge of GOBI, but also acted as encouraging facilitators and change agents.

The VASO Team: Janet Flowers, Head of Acquisitions; Catherine Gerdes, Dir. of Financial Planning & Admin Services; Cormac Quigley, VASO Specialist; Tamara Ohr-Campbell, Firm Order Specialist/INNOPAC End User Support Manager; David Romani, INNOPAC Systems Administrator

One of the major goals of the new process was to improve service to users through earlier identification and delivery of materials. The most significant recommendation to come from the consultants' work is VASO, or Vendor-Assisted Selection and Ordering, which utilizes vendor databases (in this case, GOBI) to replace or diminish the manual acquisitions operations performed by staff. Prior to implementing VASO, library staff searched order requests, keyed brief bibliographic records into their acquisitions system, output the orders as either BISAC or printed orders, and keyed invoice information into the system. Now all of those processes have been automated, and there have been significant improvements in ordering and delivery times.

In implementing VASO, UNC-CH used several tools from YBP's technical services toolkit: GobiSmart, GobiSelect, BISAC ordering, and GobiShip records. Selections from paper slips are tagged in GOBI by staff in Biblio Central of the Collection Development Department, staff in the Undergraduate Library, or staff in Acquisitions. As part of the GOBI selection process, staff add some acquisitions details, such as the proper location, fund code, vendor code, and internal library notes. The UNC-CH GOBI ordering screen has been GobiSmarted, to suppress fields not used in selection, to rename other fields to coincide with Innovative Interfaces terminology, and to validate fields whose data must be error-free for loading into the library's system. Staff also have the option to select titles onto contingency accounts, depending on the priority level of the purchase. Titles that are second or third-priority purchases may be selected but not ordered for several months, if ever. The contingency files allow the library to act quickly to meet the tight deadlines that usually accompany unexpected additional funding.

As VASO Specialist, Cormac Quigley is responsible for downloading the selection files and preparing them for BISAC ordering. Tamara Ohr-Campbell, formerly Firm Order Specialist, now INNOPAC End User Support Manager, has documented the new processes extensively, and troubleshoots problems.

Once finished with selecting, UNC-CH staff export the selection records from GOBI. YBP creates a file of MARC records with the selection data inserted into local fields. The selection records are then loaded into the library's Innovative Interfaces acquisitions system where they automatically create bibliographic records and pending order records. The VASO Specialist reviews the possible duplicates list, reviews and edits the order records, and then releases the orders, which are transmitted to YBP as BISAC orders. Tamara Ohr-Campbell, UNC-CH's Firm Order Specialist has developed extensive documentation of the VASO process. She explains, "GOBI plus INNOPAC is a very powerful streamlining tool. It sure beats keying!"

When YBP fills the orders and ships the books, the company supplies MARC shipping records containing invoicing data. For firm orders, YBP sends GobiShip records, created from the GOBI bibliographic database, rather than the CatShip records which accompany approval plan shipments. These shipping records are loaded to Innovative to enable electronic invoicing. Payment lines are automatically added to the order records, and all that Accounting must do is check the invoice to be sure that all lines match to order records, check the totals, and approve the invoice. UNC-CH's Director of Financial Planning and Administrative Services, Catherine Gerdes, heralds the efficiency of electronic invoicing. "The time saved in keying of invoices is already significant enough to result in a review of staff assignments."

The entire VASO process (GobiSelect, BISAC ordering, GobiShip records) has been replicated for UNC-CH's business with YBP's British division, Lindsay and Howes. UNC-CH consolidated their British purchasing with Lindsay and Howes one year ago.

Thus, in the past four months, UNC-CH has undertaken a complete analysis of their firm ordering workflow, and restructured the flow for the titles from YBP and Lindsay and Howes. GOBI now plays a critical role throughout the approval and ordering processes. After considerable work with YBP and Innovative Interfaces staff, the library has the new processes running almost routinely. Janet Flowers has been very pleased with the team spirit within the library group that has worked so hard to implement VASO, as well as the competence and responsiveness of the YBP Team that has worked equally hard at restructuring UNC-CH's accounts and trouble-shooting the technical issues that arose.

Staff at UNC-CH look forward to possibly extending this functionality to other vendors and also to continue to look for further efficiencies in their processes with YBP, such as electronic invoicing for standing orders and perhaps someday - cataloging services. Given the intensive daily use of GOBI in acquisitions processes, the UNC-CH staff eagerly anticipate the numerous enhancements and new capabilities of NewGobi, some of which are direct recommendations from this staff as well as colleagues at other institutions.

Written by Ann-Marie Breaux and Janet L. Flowers. Ann-Marie Breaux is the manager of the southeastern approval plans for YBP (including UNC-CH's), and also works with system vendors to develop and test new information exchange capabilities. Janet Flowers has served as Head of the Acquisitions Department at UNC-CH since 1984.