GobiWorks

GOBI³

GobiExport

GobiLink

GobiTween

GobiWorks

Contact:  Scott Perry, Asst. Head, Acquisitions (stp0@midway.uchicago.edu)

Joseph Regenstein Library

Library Organization:  The central library at the University of Chicago is the Joseph Regenstein Library. Regenstein administers acquisitions and technical services for six other campus libraries, including Chemistry, John Crerar (Sciences), Eckhart (Mathematics), Harper (Undergraduate), SSA (Social Service Administration), and Yerkes (Astronomy and Physics).

ILS Systems:  Innovative Interfaces (Acquisitions), Horizon (OPAC)

Regular GOBI Users on Library Staff:  40-50

Services Profiled:

Approval Plan

Online Review of Notification Slips

Electronic Ordering

Electronic Order Confirmation Records

GobiLink for Innopac Libraries

Provisional+ Cataloging Records

D'Angelo Law Library

YBP's introduction of GOBI in 1996 coincided with a system migration at the University of Chicago which left the library, temporarily, without a working acquisitions system. The library needed functionality and YBP, with similar urgency, needed a partner to explore the capabilities of a new web-based bibliographic service, GOBI, which was the first web-based service any academic book vendor had released. In effect U of C had users, but no system, while YBP had a system, but no users.

This complementary set of needs and the ensuing collaboration of staff at U of C and YBP resulted in the creation of some of GOBI's most advanced and widely-used features. The library helped YBP to test and develop the new system, which in turn helped the library to achieve its goal of reducing the time needed to put books onto shelves.

Today, some 30 U of C selectors participate in the YBP approval plan, which consists of three major profiles-social sciences, sciences, and humanities-plus smaller profiles in Judaica, law, and area studies. All profiles are active both at YBP and at Lindsay & Howes, YBP's UK office, with the US and UK services integrated to prevent duplicate book shipments. Most selectors have abandoned paper notification slips and instead go online, in GOBI, to review the slips generated by their profiles. Selectors mark the titles they want, while entering their initials, a fund, and notes to acquisitions about special handling such as a bookplate. Many of the library's YBP orders result from these online GOBI selections.

Harper Memorial Library

Acquisitions staff call up these electronic selections throughout the day. Pre-order searching has been reduced to a check only against series titles, as a precaution against duplication with standing orders. Beyond that, the only acquisitions task at this point is assignment of the correct ordering sub-account. GOBI then transmits the orders for immediate upload into YBP's fulfillment system. Paper-based selections also reach acquisitions, and these titles also are called up and then ordered in GOBI. Titles not found in GOBI are brought to YBP's attention through an "add unlisted title" function.

The following day acquisitions staff access YBP's ftp server and pick up a file of MARC-formatted "order confirmation" records, loading them into the library's Innopac system. These records create Innopac bibliographic and order records for the GOBI orders placed the day before. In addition to the usual bibliographic elements, order confirmation records carry the local data such as the fund assigned by selectors. No keying or re-keying in Innopac has been needed to record the orders, which are as functional as if they had been keyed into Innopac under a traditional workflow.

Two things happen next. First, a delimited file of the order confirmation records is created. This file is run through an Access program, which issues a report of potential duplicates. (Later, when books arrive from YBP, the only manual searching performed will be against potential duplicates identified by this program.) The second thing that happens to order records is that a list of titles is created for loading into Horizon, the library's OPAC, so that patrons will know about them.

John Crerar Science Library

Most U of C sub-accounts call for YBP's fullest level of cataloging, "Provisional+" records. These, for every book shipped from YBP (although not from Lindsay & Howes) enable the library to bypass a local cataloging step. YBP's cataloging staff, to make this possible, upgrade Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication copy and, whenever no LC copy exists, create provisional records with a full LC classification number and one subject heading. When books are shipped against U of C orders, YBP cataloging records, through a process known as GobiLink, overlay Innopac order records by matching on Innopac's purchase order number, a number created by the earlier loads of order confirmation records. YBP retrieves this piece of data, which Innopac requires for overlay, from files mounted daily on YBP's server. YBP inserts the purchase order number into the proper MARC field within cataloging records, so that it can be passed back to the library for overlay. Once these files are processed and loaded a list of titles is created in Innopac for transfer to Horizon.

Cataloging records, in addition to their customary function of enabling users to find books in the OPAC, work for the library in another way too. MARC fields include list and net price, as well as invoice number and date, data fields which allow Innopac to assemble an electronic invoice, freeing library staff from the work of keying one.

Shipments against U of C orders normally arrive each week on Tuesday. The corresponding cataloging records are in Horizon on Wednesday. By Thursday, barcodes have been added and scanned into records, and labels and bookplates applied. At this point the Provisional+ records make it possible, with no U of C cataloging step, to create spine labels for most titles received from YBP; even those, again, for which no LC copy exists at that point. This work of barcoding, scanning, and labeling is performed in the evening by students. Books are usually available to users within 48-72 hours of receipt at the library.

Left: Sem Sutter, Assistant Director for Humanities and Social Sciences. Right: Scott Perry, Assistant Head of Acquisitions

Approval plan books, likewise, reach users in short order. They are mounted on a shelf for review each Friday and remain on view until a selector approves them, a week's time at most. As soon as approved by selectors, books are labeled and barcoded by evening staff and sent for shelving within 24-48 hours. YBP's Provisional+ cataloging records, which accompany the approval books, are, again, transferred into the Horizon OPAC. Data YBP inserts into MARC tags, once more, enables electronic invoicing. Fund codes, derived from subject mappings against approval plan profiles, are also carried in MARC tags.

The library's major goal from the beginning, according to Scott Perry, Assistant Head of Acquisitions at Regenstein, was speed, finding ways to keep the books moving from receipt to shelf. "Nothing," he says, "stops somewhere for a day or two." The University of Chicago, thanks to these acquisitions and selection workflows, is among YBP's most intensive GOBI sites. (Even the U of C reference desk puts GOBI to use, to help answer bibliographic queries.) The arrangements begun in 1996, says Perry, "just continue to work." Although the library has an acquisitions system today, much of the workflow designed around GOBI in 1996 remains in place. U of C and YBP, above all, both have users, and both have a system.