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Contact: William Walsh, Head, Acquisitions Department (wwalsh@gsu.edu)

Pullen Library's North and South Buildings are connected by a three-story bridge.

Library Organization:  William Russell Pullen Library serves as the undergraduate and graduate research library for Georgia State University. Containing approximately 1.2 million volumes, Pullen Library consists of a five-story Library North building and an eight-floor Library South, currently under renovation. As a partner in Georgia State University's mission of teaching, research, and service, Pullen Library provides leadership in the access and use of information for Georgia's urban, research university. Additionally, the library is part of a wide network of information providers that serves the citizens of Atlanta, the state of Georgia, and the scholarly community worldwide.

ILS System:  Endeavor's Voyager system

Regular GOBI Users:  20

Services Profiled:

Approval Plan cataloging records

GOBI ordering

GobiSmart

Electronic order confirmation records

Firm order cataloging records

EDIFACT ordering

EDIFACT invoicing

Joan Stephens, Head of Acquisitions, and David Anderson, Head of Cataloging, coordinated the testing and implementation of the new Voyager/YBP services at Pullen Library.

The Year 2000 marked a significant milestone in YBP's relationship with Endeavor Information Systems. The 2000 release of Voyager enabled libraries to significantly streamline approval and ordering workflows. No library has adopted these new tools more rapidly and completely than Georgia State University's Pullen Library.

Georgia State University began its relationship with YBP in 1977, as YBP's eleventh approval plan. In those days, the approval plan comprised only university press book shipments. Over the years, the plan expanded, until it became a full-blown trade and university press approval plan in 1998. Pullen Library currently receives approximately 12,000 approval books per year from YBP. They also order and receive more than 10,000 titles from YBP annually. Pullen Library was one of YBP's earliest electronic order customers, generating the X12 orders from their former PALS system. When they migrated to Voyager in 1999 as part of the first phase of a statewide implementation and creation of a union catalog, the library was faced with resuming paper orders until the EDIFACT ordering component of Voyager could be upgraded to transmit more complete data to vendors. Due to the large volume of material Pullen receives from YBP and a workflow which previously incorporated electronic ordering, they were amenable to working with YBP to test and implement new Voyager/vendor functionality as quickly as possible. Thus, Georgia State joined the University of Rochester in serving as Endeavor/YBP test partners in the 2000/2001 fiscal year. Georgia State then moved from testing to routine usage of the new services in February, 2001.

Mikel Stewart, Mail Clerk, unpacks the new YBP shipments each week.

Georgia State's approval plan has been operating at a very low return rate of less than 2.5% for the past few years. In early 2001, the decision was made to begin receiving YBP cataloging records for their approval shipments. "We were looking for outsourcing opportunities, and after comparing several possibilities, YBP was a good choice," says David Anderson, Head of Cataloging. YBP supplies Library of Congress-distributed MARC records, and upgrades any CIPs to full cataloging records. For those items with no LC copy, YBP supplies brief provisional records. These cataloging records contain some invoicing data, such as the Voyager fund code (assigned by YBP as part of the approval profiling process) and the net price. Karen Davis, Head of the Monograph Cataloging Unit, works with Voyager server site staff to load these records into Voyager using the bulk import program. When loaded, the MARC records create bibliographic records, order records, and fund encumbrances. They also populate a special field of the Voyager order record with a YBP matchpoint number. Student workers copy catalog the routine material, verifying the bibliographic record, and adding the holdings and item records. They also mark the records for export to MARCIVE for authority control and for batch loading to OCLC to set holdings. Any questions, provisional records, or problematic items are passed on to catalogers.

Karen Davis, Head of Monographic Cataloging, supervises the student workers who do much of the library's copy cataloging.

While Cataloging works on the records, the Acquisitions Department handles the receipt and payment for the approval books. After the newly-created purchase order has been approved, Brian Gorman, Head of Monographs Ordering Unit, then loads an EDIFACT invoice file from YBP, which matches payment lines to the appropriate order records via the YBP matchpoint. The paper invoice is checked against the electronic invoice; there are often a few unlinked invoice lines that must be resolved manually before the invoice can be approved. If Pullen is returning any approval books, credit memos are created manually. Finally, fund codes are changed for books being retained by a department other than the one YBP assigned during the profiling process. Then all items on the purchase order are received with a single keystroke, and the invoice is approved. Linda Vincent, Head of Monographic Receiving and Bookkeeping, and her staff handle the electronic invoices. Linda reports, "Having the invoices come electronically is very time-saving and a big plus."

In addition to approval books, Georgia State receives a large number of notification slips from YBP. While some selectors still review paper notification slips, an increasing number are looking at their slips online via GOBI. Akilah Nosakhere, Pullen's Head of Collection Development, notes, "I find that the younger librarians are more technically savvy and prefer

Akilah Nosakhere, Head of Collection Development, Susan Moss, Collection Development Office Manager, and Patti Burleson, Collection Development Associate (not pictured) coordinate selector review of approval books and place notification slip orders on GOBI.

online selection using GOBI, while the long-time librarians are more comfortable with paper slips because of their portability. Paper slips are easily tucked in a pocket or bag for reviewing on the train commute home or during a lull on the reference desk. However, I find that electronic slips can be just as portable as paper. Pullen Librarians are open to online review of slips and are generally excited about the increased versatility regarding electronic review of slips in GOBI Edition 2." Notification slip orders are not placed by Acquisitions staff. Instead they are searched and ordered on GOBI by Patti Burleson, a Library Associate in the Collection Development Department. As the titles are ordered on GOBI, the library keys in local data such as fund code and location code. There are also spaces for notes to YBP, as well as internal library notes such as notification or processing information. YBP utilizes GobiSmart to suppress GOBI order fields not used in ordering, rename other fields to coincide with Voyager terminology, and to validate fields where data must be error-free for loading into the library's system. The day after titles are ordered on GOBI, YBP provides the library with a file of brief MARC records which include all of the order details entered on GOBI. The Acquisitions Department staff then step into the process, retrieving the file and loading it into Voyager, where it creates brief bibliographic records, order records, and fund encumbrances. As with the approval books, a YBP-supplied matchpoint number is embedded in the order record to aid with electronic invoicing when the book is later received.

When YBP ships the ordered books, cataloging records and EDIFACT invoices are also supplied. The cataloging records are loaded into Voyager to overlay the brief bibliographic records created from the electronic order confirmation records. Then the EDIFACT invoice is loaded and payment lines are automatically linked to the individual order records. Finally, the electronic invoice is checked and approved.

Linda Vincent, Head of Monographic Receiving and Invoicing, and Tracey Raines, Bookkeeping Clerk, load and process the EDIFACT invoices weekly.

Firm orders follow a different workflow from notification slip orders. For firm ordered material, Acquisitions staff download OCLC records at the point of order, and then transmit EDIFACT orders to YBP. Joan Stephens, Head of Acquisitions, is pleased with electronic ordering. "Sometimes it seems like magic. It took us ten minutes to get the EDI connection profile set up, and EDIFACT ordering worked perfectly from the very first test." The EDIFACT order includes the library's purchase order number, as well as a unique Voyager line item number for each item. When YBP ships the books, an EDIFACT invoice is also sent, which matches payment lines to the proper order records by one of the Voyager numbers supplied in the original purchase order.

Thus, over the past year, Pullen Library of Georgia State University has significantly streamlined their approval and ordering workflows by taking advantage of a wide spectrum of tools available from YBP and Endeavor. GOBI and various types of YBP-supplied records now play a critical role throughout Georgia State's approval and ordering processes.

Written by Ann-Marie Breaux, Joan Stephens, and David Anderson. Ann-Marie Breaux is the manager of the southeastern approval plans for YBP (including Georgia State's), and also works with system vendors to develop and test new information exchange capabilities. Joan Stephens has served as the Head of the Acquisitions Department at Georgia State University since 1998. David Anderson has served as Head of the Cataloging Department since 1986.