College and Research Libraries When Do You Use a Jobber? BY J O H N V E E N S T R A AND L O I S MAI AC Q U I S I T I O N L I B R A R I A N S must ask them-selves many times each day "Shall I buy direct, or through a jobber?" T h e old theory whereby a library used two or three jobbers for all its orders can no longer be considered wise purchasing. As the modern librarian places his orders, he must evaluate each order against the three basic problems: (1) delivery time, (2) discount, and (3) ease of processing. Each point is important and can mean a sizable saving for the library, either di- rectly by discount or by time saved, or indirectly by eliminating wear and tear on the staff. A prime responsibility of every acquisition officer is this careful and judicious use of the library's money so the generally meager funds may be spread to the utmost. Unfortunately the majority of the li- brary literature on acquisitions scarcely touches this area of dealer selection or service evaluation. T h e advice given is usually for a library to find a reliable jobber and buy the bulk of its books through him.1 A continuing evaluation of dealers and their services is expected of each acquisition department. Since publishers frequently revise their dis- counts and strive to improve their ship- ping and billing procedures, their serv- ice must be periodically compared with the jobber's service. In an effort to re-examine book pur- chasing at the Purdue University li- braries, a comparison was made of our American jobbers' and publishers' dis- counts and delivery time for a year. Of course, every library has its own subject areas of emphasis and our evaluation l Maurice F . Tauber, Technical Services in Libraries, (New Y o r k : Columbia University P r . , 1 9 5 3 ) , pp. 44-46. Mr. Veenstra is Head, Order Unit, and Miss Mai is Cataloger, Purdue University Libraries. must be weighed with consideration of our emphasis. Since the Purdue libraries buy heavily in science and technology with only a minor concentration on trade books, the same results may not have been reached by our survey as might have been reached by that of a library geared more towards the humanities. Be- cause of our subject emphasis the ma- jority of our purchases are on short- discount lists. Perhaps that is why the results of our survey cause us to question the value of using a jobber for the ma- jority of our books. In order to show the reasons for ques- tioning the jobber's services for our par- ticular circumstances, an abbreviated table of the results of our survey is shown here. T h e average discount from the publisher is cited, followed by the average discount given for the same pub- lisher's books by one of the major job- bers. T h i s is followed by the respective delivery time of each. Publishers cited are those that publish particularly in the scientific and technological fields. In answer to our figures given below, jobbers often point out that the ease of handling one invoice and only one check quite outweighs the other savings. Our first response to this is that publishers are generally quite willing to bill peri- odically on one long invoice if this is preferred although our feeling is that lengthy invoices can cause extra compli- 522 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S PUBLISHER DISCOUNTS ( P e r C e n t ) DELIVERY T I M E ( D a y s ) Direct J o b b e r Direct J o b b e r Academic 10 5 23.1 55.0 Addison Wesley 10 5 11.3 54.0 Appleton 20 13.5 10.0 35.8 Holt 20 14 13.8 40.6 Houghton-Mifflin 25 27 8.6 30.7 Interscience 10 5 12.7 48.0 Irwin 15 8 9.8 28.5 McGraw 20 10 12.7 45.2 Macmillan 25 14 13.1 27.8 Prentice-Hall 15* 7 18.8 20.8 Saunders 10 8 8.3 50.0 T h o m a s 10 8 12.3 20.0 Van Nostrand 15 17 13.0 44.0 Wiley 10 5 11.6 25.7 * P r e n t i c e - H a l l gives an additional discount to l i b r a r i e s by c h a r g i n g t e x t copy rate. cations. How many long invoices are held up in the acquisition department because of missing books, wrong editions sent, incorrect billing, etc? It is easier to correct and process a smaller invoice. Unless the procedure for processing these invoices is very complicated, a large number of short invoices need present no greater problem then one long in- voice. Also in many cases the processing of these invoices can be streamlined so that the problem is lessened. An example of the value of dealing directly can read- ily be seen when our savings through McGraw-Hill alone in a year's time will be over $600.00. T h e r e are other features that cause one to turn to the publisher. Jobbers will report "Cancelled, publisher and we are out of stock." In the majority of cases it has been our experience that if we in turn order the same book from the publisher, he will supply it. Many deal- ers will also cancel books that are "not yet published" whereas the publisher will usually supply when published. Standing orders are frequently a prob- lem when placed through a jobber. T h e publisher will answer more quickly and better than the jobber on follow-ups. In general the performance of the publisher is preferred to that of the jobber. We are aware that the recent American Book- sellers' Association conference led to other conclusions, but perhaps its in- spection was centered on trade-book rather than technical-book publishers. It is understood that the jobber is in a pinch. His raison-d'etre must be for the services he performs, and many cannot afford to give any frills to their service and continue to stay in business. As the sales manager of one of the largest job- bers told us, " W e try to stay ahead of the pack, and that's all." T h e jobber can- not afford to stock titles unless the de- mand is great. Science and technology books are not in great enough demand, so they are not stocked and thus de- livery is slow. Single copy orders cut the jobber's discount, so they must be stock- piled until the dealer has five or ten orders for the same book or books of the same publisher and can take advantage of a more favorable discount. Most job- bers operate on a 15 per cent margin and cannot afford to spend any extra money on extra services. One large job- ber whom we tried reported he could not cite our order number on the invoices even though he knew this would mean the loss of our proposed business with him, which would have amounted to an estimated $25,000.00 yearly. It is re- N O V E M B E R 1 9 6 2 523 grettable, but true, that the economies forced on the jobber often causes added problems to libraries. T h i s survey has been very helpful for us. Our delivery time has been cut, and our discounts have increased. T h e fac- ulty is pleased with the prompter service. Control over our funds has become tighter since we can better predict costs. If a dealer comes to talk with us about his services, we can also be specific as to discounts and delivery time and require definite commitments. We will continue to order current popular titles by major American publishers through a jobber. All other orders for American books that are in print can generally be placed more advantageously directly with the publisher. Many librarians are familiar with the Book Buyer's Handbook issued by the American Booksellers Association. As stated in the Reader's Adviser and Book- man's Manual2 this handbook is " a guide to publishers, their discounts, terms, policies, and trade features, issued in ring-binder format with correction sheets to be supplied from time to time." If acquisition librarians had access to a similar tool, surveys such as ours would be easier to make, and the order librar- ian could better evaluate his purchasing. 2 H e s t e r R . Hoffman, The Reader's Adviser and Bookman's Manual, (New Y o r k : Bowker, 1 9 6 0 ) , p. 19. Fair Copying Forty-five members of the Association of American University Presses have signed a " R e s o l u t i o n on Permissions (designed to reduce red tape when it is necessary for a scholar to cite the work of others) agreeing: " 1 . T h a t publications issued under o u r imprints may be quoted without specific prior permission in works of original scholarship for accurate citation of authority or for criticism, review, or evaluation, subject to the conditions listed below. " 2 . T h a t appropriate credit be given in the case of each q u o t a t i o n . " 3 . T h a t waiver of the requirement for specific permission does not e x t e n d to quotations that are complete units in themselves (as poems, letters, short stories, essays, j o u r n a l articles, complete chapters or sections of books, maps, charts, graphs, tables, drawings, or other illustrative materials), in whatever form they may be reproduced; n o r does the waiver e x t e n d to q u o t a t i o n of whatever length presented as primary material for its own sake (as in anthologies or books of readings). " 4 . T h e fact that specific permission for quoting of material may be waived under this agreement does not relieve the q u o t i n g author and publisher from the responsibility of determining 'fair use' of such m a t e r i a l . " — A n t i q u a r i a n Book- man, May 2 8 - J u n e 4, 1962, p. 2118. 524 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S