College and Research Libraries KATHLEEN McCULLOUGH Approval Plans: Vendor Responsibility and Library Research A Literature Survey and Dis~ussion The widely accepted approval-plan concept has moved from. a lengthy period of discussion of selection responsibility to a few recent stud- ies of the plans' cost, efficiency, and impact on research collections. An annotated list of articles from 1958 .to 1972 traces this transformation and identifies the research studies. Responsibilities of vendors in ad- vertising and promotion and in continuing service to libraries are dis- cussed. Areas for further research and cooperative programs to apply research findings are proposed. LIBRARIANS WRITING AROUT APPROVAL PLANS are nearly unanimous in their support of the concept. It seemed, how- ever, from discontinuous reading, that much of the discussion was offered by administrators who were concerned with theory, not with technique; that much of the widely expressed satisfaction was unsupported by critical study or re- search; and that the continuing influ- ence of the originator and promoter, the vendor, was largely overlooked. Therefore this literature survey. The discussion following the bibliography is restricted to plans for United States publications, although some articles in the survey treat both domestic and for- eign plans as a single concept. United States plans, because they produce more books, seem to provoke more of the complexities. The discussion considers two problems-the performance of vendors offering the plans and the diffi- culties of acquiring unvolunteered Ms. McCullough is assistant order librari- an at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. 368 I books-and will suggest areas for fur- ther study. LITERATURE SuRVEY Libraries with approval plans of their own will not find much in this list that is outside their experience. Almost every author has been cited by another; there is much in-breeding, a situation suggest- ing the need for more research. Articles are in roughly chronological order, but those that relate to each oth- er are grouped; literature was searched through mid-December 1971. Quotations pointing out technical problems and proposing research were deliberately chosen for that reason and are not to be construed as necessarily representing the author's principal thesis. Research surveys and in-house studies are indicat- ed by an asterisk. Early blanket orders involved selection, but in general return privileges were not a part of the agreement, giving rise to later charges of librarians abdicating their selection responsibilities. 1. Jacob, Emerson and Salisbury, Begel, "Automatic Purchase of University Press Books," Library Journal 83: 707-8 (1 March 1958). Describes procedures used at Michi- gan State University library to acquire all books of university presses, receiving books directly from the presses, but using a job- ber to place the standing orders and to con- solidate billing to the library. 2. "Plan to Speed Pre-Viewing of Books by Libraries," Publishers' Weekly 179:31-2 (18 May 1959). A news story describing in some detail the review-copy plan devised by Emerson Greenaway, first with Lippincott and later with other publishers. All books received were paid for, but librarians selected from books received those they wanted to catalog and to order in quantity for branches. 3. Merritt, LeRoy C. "Notes of Merritt," Library Journal 84:3548 ( 15 Novem- ber 1959). An editorial questioning blanket or- ders on the grounds that the selection proc- ess is abandoned and costs of cataloging more books offset cheaper acquisitions costs. Information is based on the 1957-58 report of the Ohio State University director of libraries. 3a. Oboler, Eli M. "'Get-'Em-All' Book Buying," Library I ournal 85: 1046 ( 15 March 1960). Response to entry no. 3, again argu- ing selection vs. completeness; ". . . surely there must be some reason why so many of ,their [i.e., university presses'] books get re- maindered." · 3b. Merritt, LeRoy C. "Notes of Merritt," Library Journal 85:1097 (15 March 1960). Continues the discussion of the fore- going by noting responses from the library in defense of its plan. The library was or- dering more than 90 percent of the total output of forty-seven university presses be- fore the blanket plan; most of the remain- ing 10 percent were canceled by profile ex- clusions. . 4. "The 'Get-'Em-All' Theory of Book Buying," Library Journal 85:3387- 93 ( 1 Oct. 1960). The first major article on blanket or- ders vs. selection, it is also a plea to critics to distinguish between receiving books ear- lier than usual and their subsequent review Approval Plans I 369 and selection. It is a symposium on the Greenaway plan, with Emerson Greenaway as a participant. 2 Others were spokesmen for Lippincott and public, county, college, and university libraries. All but one ( Obo- ler) felt that the advantages outweighed the disadvantages.aa 4a. "The Sanctity of Book Selection," Li- brary ]ournal85:3400 (1 Oct. 1960) . An editorial addressed to blanket-or- der ·critics. "There is always the danger that something holy can easily become a sacred cow. Those who wage indiscriminate war on behalf of the sanctity of book selection are in danger of precipitating this process." 4b. Stevens, Rolland E. "Down the Prim- rose Path-But Not All the Way," Li- brary Journal 86:146 ( 15 Jan. 1961). Response to entry no. 4, principally Oboler's comments in 3a and 4; compares blanket orders for large research collections with a smaller library's continuation orders for monographic series. From the first articles in 1958 to early 1961, the discussion of blanket orders centered on the charge that publishers were supplanting librarians as book se- lectors. After an apparent five-year hia- tus, the subject again appears, but now discussion turns to the absolute neces- sity for rigid selection, and the topic be- gins to turn from "blanket orders" (all books kept, if not cataloged) to "ap- proval plans" (books not selected can be returned). In addition to the emphasis on selection, criticism of vendors' ser- vices and complaints of internal prob- lems for ' libraries begin to appear. Some of the problems are now being re- searched. 0 5. "Quotes-Publishers, Computers, & Consumers," Library Journal 91:1365 ( 15 March 1966). A selection from the 1964/ 65 report of the University of CalifOrnia library, Los Angeles. It is the first to point to problems in the mechanics of the system: publishing, late receipt of books, and coverage: . Unfortunately the blanket order system is least effective for U.S. books because of the complexity of the American publishing 370 I College & Research Libraries • September 1972 business and the inexpertness of the Amer- ican book distribution channels. Some test runs this year revealed shocking and ap- parently increasing delays in our receipt of currently published U.S. books. We had gone on the assumption that our own in- ternal procedures, prior to ordering and after receipt, were the guilty elements, be- cause libraries as nonprofit institutions are always easily accused of inefficiency. How- ever, the oppressive delays appear to be in the market place and beyond our con- trol. Moreover, the blanket-order system appears to be least effective for scientific and technical books, although the reason for this is not immediately clear. 6. Morrison, Perry D. "A Symposium on Approval Order Plans and the Book Selection Responsibilities of Librari- ans," Library Resources & Technical Services 12: 133-45 (Spring 1968). Material originally presented at a Col- lege Division workshop during a Pacific Northwest Library Association conference at Couer d'Alene, Idaho, August'"_~3, 1967, minutes of which appear in "College Divi- sion Workshop," PNLA Quarterly, Oct. 1967, p. 29-30. The principal author re- views the kinds of blanket orders and the reasons for using them. He cautions against heavy dependence on approval plans and states the need for further study of their immediate and long-term effects. His con- clusion is that approval plans are basically beneficial but can produce automatic super- ficial selection methods that must not be al- lowed to supersede traditional librarian-fac- ulty cooperation. 6a. Merritt, LeRoy Charles. "Are We Se- lecting or Collecting?" p. 140-42. Concedes the value of approval plans, but questions the dealer's preselection: he works "from his definition of the word 'scholarly'" and the books he considers not scholarly and does not send can be lost to the library completely because they may never be brought to the library's attention. His "contention is that the quality of the collections produced, not the promised in- crease in efficiency of ordering procedures is the true issue" (p. 140). 6b. Browne, Joseph P. "Can Blanket Or- ders Help the Small College Library?" p. 142-4. Browne is opposed to blanket orders on the basis that "particularly in the small college library . . . the one really profes- sional library activity which we, as librari- ans, perform is that of book selection" (p. 142). He emphasizes the negative se- lection role a blanket order leaves to the li- brarian; i.e., the librarian rejects what he does not want after the initial selection by the jobber. 6c. Shepard, Stanley A. "Approval Books on a Small Budget?" p. 144-5. Presents guidelines for determining whether a library can afford an approval plan, depending principally on a college's teaching commitment to the subject, the amount of publishing in that area, and whether a library's single-book ordering normally approaches the amount for total publishing. 7. "Blanket Order Plans Backed by Jack- son," Library I ournal 94: 20 ( 1 Jan. 1969). News report of a speech delivered by W. Carl Jackson, director of the Pennsyl- vania State University library, to eastern college librarians. One point not made gen- erally is the advantage a blanket order pro- vides of the library's gaining control of book funds previously held by departments. Problems cited include "delays in Library of Congress cataloging; the need to com- municate to the faculty just what kinds of materials come automatically-and the need to explain to faculty members why a given book either was or was not accepted by the library." 8. Thorn, Ian W. "Some Administrative Aspects of Blanket Ordering," Library Resources & Technical Services 13: 338-46 (Summer 1969). First to address in detail the problem of internal mechanical procedures in deal- ing with unverified bibliographical data, in- terim controls, storage, and selector traffic in the acquisitions area. He concludes that "it may be more costly to process unordered books than ordered ones" ( p. 342). Sa. Rebuldela, Harriet K. "Some Adminis- trative Aspects of Blanket Ordering: A Response," p. 342-5. Offers suggestions for revising internal procedures, e.g., filing records and LC proofs by title to bypass the problem of unverified entrie-s; Xeroxing rather than typing multiple 3x5 records. . (See entry no. 22, Anderson and Rebuldela.) 8b. Thorn, Ian W. "Some Administrative Aspects of Blanket Ordering: Rejoin- der to a Response," p. 345-6. Problems still are the acquisition unit's having to type its own purchase-recommen- dation forms for unordered books, normally submitted through other channels, and the problem of assignment of a location for each book to the various departments of the library, e.g., reference, browsing room. 0 9. Maher, Kathleen E.; Lane, Diana; Schmidt, Martha; and Townley, Charles. "How Good Is Your All Book Plan?" Norman, University of Okla- homa Libraries, n.d. (Mimeographed.) An -internal research study run in the second quarter 1968/ 69 to determine whether the library's approval-plan vendor was producing, as promised, as much as 80 percent of the books within the week of publication or before the title's first appear- ance in trade bibliographies. Results were that the company was supplying 70 per- cent. The study found that university press- es give the best service, followed, in order, by trade-scholarly publishers, publishers is- suing fewer than five titles a year, and trade publishers. The study is described in detail by Axford. 1 9 0 10. Lane, David 0. "Approval and Blan- ket Order Acquisitions Plans ." Pre- pared for the Institute on Acquisitions Procedures in Academic Libraries sponsored by the University Library, University of California, San Diego, Aug. 25- Sept. 5, 1969. (Photocopy of typescript.) ED 043 342. Discusses selection vs. collection in the context of the distinction between blan- ket orders and approval plans and address- es the argument that it is easier to keep a book than to return it. "I believe it is a slur on librarians to say they would not return unwanted volumes" (p. 6). The article con- cludes with a survey of academic libraries to determine how many use the plans and what their experience has been. Questions and tallies of responses are included ( p. 8- 11). Twenty-five of the forty-six respon- dents were satisfied with their plans; of those expressing some dissatisfaction, com- plaints were "serials present problems; du- plicates are received; too much junk re- ceived; too limited; takes too much time; pertinent books are not received; late re- Approval Plans I 371 ceipt; guidelines not followed; and billing and invoicing problems" (p. 9-10). 0 11. Dudley, Norman. "The Blanket Or- der," Library Trends 18:318-27 (Jan. 1970). Discusses the results of a survey on foreign and domestic plans of the then seventy-nine member libraries of the Asso- ciation of Research Libraries to test the depth and breadth of the selection contro- versy and to "get some sort of picture of the impact of the phenomenon of the blanket order on research libraries' acquisitions pol- icies and procedures" (p. 318). Results from fifty-two respondents are presented as discussion; the questionnaire and tallied replies are not included. The article details variations in plans, dealers' methods of an- nouncing books, and methods of reviewing books received. Disadvantages, "neither as numerous nor as concentrated as the ad- vantages" ( p. 322), were uncertainty about receiving a specific title, marginal and ephemeral material received, expense of the program, loss of fiscal control, duplicates, and the quality of the dealer's book selec- tion ( p. 322-3). Dudley notes this funda- mental aspect of approval plans: "A blanket order is a powerful tool; like any powerful tool it can be dangerous if not handled properly" ( p. 326) . 1.2. Rouse, Roscoe. "Automation Stops Here: A Case for Man-Made Book Collections," College & Research Li- braries 31:147- 54 (May 1970). Originally a paper read at the second se1pinar on approval and gatheri11g plans, this is a widely discussed article that coun- ters completely the general acceptance of approval plans. 21 Rouse's thesis is that his li- brarians, with an average of 14.7 years on the staff at the time of his article, are _much more knowledgeable about users' require- ments than his vendor. He describes the li- brary's unfortunate experiences with the in- ternal technical problems created by the plan. Among these is the vendor-related problem of not knowing whether a book would be sent and of having to resort to the previously-used selection procedures to monitor the program. Rouse also brings up a problem not pre- viously discussed in the literature, that of over-statement of a company's capabilities by its representatives. The plan was in op- . 372 I College & Research Libraries • September 1972 eration only four months, but he says, " ... I shall admit to the possibility of un- fairness in an experience of only four months but also point out the fact that this was one month longer than the agent said was needed ... " (p. 148). Because of the short time the plan was in operation and because of other specific statements, the ar- ticle prompted numerous lengthy responses. 12a. "Letters," College & Research Li- braries 31:341-51 (September 1970). The letters, Rouse's responses to the writers, and the original article must be read as a unit. Together they demonstrate that an approval plan is not a panacea and not for every library and that if an approval plan is undertaken the. library must be pre- pared to give it constant attention; it is not automatic. 13. Wilden-Hart, Marion. "The Long- Term Effects of Approval Plans," Li- brary Resources & Technical Services 14:400-6 (Summer 1970). Assesses approval plans as basic tools that will automatically supply the obvious, self-selecting kind of book, freeing bibliog- raphers' time for collecting the more eso- teric material. Then addresses the matter of how much they cost: ". . . it is difficult to assess how much more is spent on the system than is saved by professional staff no longer being expensively used as effi- cient clerks" ( p. 402) . Urges research into costs and the long-term effects on collec- tion-building in libraries, both individually and nationally, with many specific questions to be answered. A significant article. 14. Meyer, Betty J., and Demos, John T. "Acquisition Policy for University Li- braries: Selection or Collection," Li- brary Resources & Technical Services 14:395-9 (Summer 1970). Distinguishes acquisitions policies for college libraries from those of research li- braries, which have more diverse interests and larger budgets. Also introduces a factor that must be taken into account when ap- proval programs are instituted: faculty at- titudes toward departmental funds (see also entry no. 7 and Atkinson20. 21) . "The library which promotes any approval plan must face the important task of winning over the faculty members who can be notoriously conservative about 'their' libraries. Any pro- gram which appears to take money out of their hands and place it in a common pool for purchase of current materials is seen as a threat to the faculty's traditional control. It does not help, either, when a faculty member in a fairly conservative field sees some of the 'frivolous' titles other depart- ments are spending money to purchase" (p. 398-9). (t 15. Evans, G. Edward. "Book Selection and Book Collection Usage in Aca- demic Libraries," The Library Quar- terly 40:297-308 (July 1970). A study of four academic libraries compares the circulation of books selected by librarians, those selected by faculty, and those produced by blanket orders. Results were that "librarians selected more titles that were used than did faculty members or book jobbers, and faculty members se- lected more titles that were used than did book jobbers" (p. 301). Although the study was not intended to inquire into the reasons for the results, the figures did point to the differences in procedures of reviewing the books received: one person at one library, two at another, and teams of bibliographers at the other two. He concludes that rigid selection is essential and that selection must be done by persons for whom it is a pri- mary responsibility, not added to other duties. Areas for additional research are noted on p. 307-8. The article is based pri- marily on the author's Ph.D. dissertation, "The Influence of Book Selection Agents Upon Book Collection Usage in . Academic Libraries." Graduate School of Library Sci- ence, University of Illinois, 1969. The ab- stract appears in Dissertation Abstracts In- ternational30:3032A (Jan. 1970). 16. Taggart, W. R. "Blanket Approval Or- dering-a Positive Approach." Cana- dian Library Journal 27:286-9 (July- Aug. 1970). A descriptive article on both foreign and domestic plans intending "to place the positive benefits of a properly handled sys-~ tern on the record ... " (p. 286). He em- phasizes the need for critical control on the part of the library selection staff: "The plans, although they are in a sense auto- matic, do not operate by themselves" (p. 289). 17. Steele, Colin. "Blanket Orders and the Bibliographer in the Large Research Library," Journal of Librarianship 2: 272- 80 (Oct. 1970). Continues the point suggested by the Evans study, that subject specialists must be involved in helping to organize the ap- proval-plan profile in the first place and in selection from the book shipments to main- tain essential critical control of the pro- gram.15 18. Lyle, Guy R. The Librarian Speaking; Interviews with University Librarians. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1970. Subject bibliographers and approval plans are discussed in the interview with Robert G. Vosper (p. 175-6); other aspects of an approval plan-screening shipments, funding, coverage-are discussed with Wil- liam P. Kellam (p. 74-5). 0 19. Axford, H. William. "The Economics of a Domestic Approval Plan," Col- lege & Research Libraries 32:368-75 (Sept. 1971). "With respect to approval plans, what is needed at the present moment is a solid body of research which will calm some of the controversy by moving us from opinion and prejudice into documented facts" (p. 368) . "Much of the published and unpub- lished research [views] approval plans large- ly in isolation from the total acquisitions and processing effort" ( p. 369) . Axford studied processing costs and the use of staff time, specifically by each func- tion in each technical service department, at five state universities in Florida, compar- ing the costs of books acquired by approval plan with those acquired by other means. The data "clearly support the contention that a blanket approval plan is an efficient method" and that "a well-managed approv- al plan can save at the minimum one full- time position, with significantly higher sav- ings possible depending on variances in in- ternal procedures" (p. 371). The project also included a vendor-per- formance study for university-press titles similar to Maher's, which he describes in detail. 9 Results indicate faster and more complete coverage in the libraries with ap- proval plans. The study was also presented at the third seminar on gathering and ap- proval plans. 22 Approval Plans I 373 19a. DeVolder, Arthur L. "Approval Plans -Bounty or Bedlam?" Publishers Weekly, 202:18-20 (3 July 1972). A discussion of philosophy and prac- tice, plus details of changes the library made to meet selection problems. Three symposia have been convened to discuss approval plans exclusively, both foreign and domestic. Proceedings of the first two have been published; the third is due shortly. These three books provide a comprehensive survey of many aspects of the entire subject, in- cluding discussion by dealers' panels. The first two have appended material describing the programs and services of jobbers offering foreign and domestic plans, and the first has examples of pro- files. 20. Sypers-Duran, Peter, ed. Approval and Gathering Plans in Academic Li- brm·ies. Published for Western Mich- igan University by Libraries Unlimit- ed, Littleton, Colorado, 1969. (Pro- ceedings of the International Seminar on Approval and Gathering Plans in Large and Medium Size Academic Li- braries, Western Michigan University, 14 Nov. 1968.) Contents: 0 Atkinson, Hugh C. "Faculty Reac- tion to an Approval Plan at the Ohio State University." p. 30-40. Bright, Franklyn F. "Blanket Orders with Foreign Dealers." p. 43-9. Edelman, Hendrik. "Joint University Libraries and Blanket Orders." p. 12-16. Hanlin, Frank. "Summary Statement." p. 75-8. Loreck, Richard. "Approval Plans Can Be Successful." p. 4-7. Sullivan, Howard A. "How to Make a Patchwork Quilt Into a Blanket; the Ag- ony of Transition." p. 21-26. 20a. Rosenberg, Betty. "Acquisition Plans," review of Approval and Gathering Plans in Academic Libraries, in Li- brary Journal 95:2237 ( 15 June 1970). 21. Spyers-Duran, Peter, and Gore, Dan- iel, eds. Advances in Understanding Approval and Gathering Plans in Aca- 374 I College & Research Libraries • September 1972 demic Libraries. Kalamazoo, Western Michigan University, 1970. (Proceed- ings of the Second International Sem- inar on Approval and Gathering Plans in Large and Medium Size Academic Libraries, Western Michigan Univer- sity, 30-31 Oct. 1969). Contents: Atkinson, Hugh C. "Faculty Appraisal of an Established Approval Plan." p. 99- 106. Boss, Richard W . "Automation and Approval Plans; Vendor-Library Coopera- tion." p. 19-29. Boyer, Jean W. "Selective Duplication and Approval Plans." p. 85-94. Ferris, H. Donald. "Automated Selec- tion of Duplicate Titles Through Approval Plans." p. 67-77. Gore, Daniel. "Understanding Ap- proval and Gathering Plans." p. 3-17. Hamlin, Arthur T. "Summary State- ment." p. 135-6. Harris, Thomas C. "Book Purchasing or Book Selection; a Study of Values." p. 53- 56. Herling, Eleanor. "Approval Plans, Special Collections, and Kindred Matters." p. 63-5. Rouse, Roscoe. "Automation Stops Here." p. 35-48. (See also entry no. 12.) 21a. Melcher, Daniel. "Approval and Gath- ering Plans," Melcher on Acquisitions. -Chicago, ALA, 1971. p. 109-16. A description of approval plans writ- ten from the view of a publisher and book- seller, information for which was gathered at the second seminar. 21 Some of his com- ments concerning vendors: He may ... sense a new mandate regard- ing speed of delivery ( p. 112). Needless to say, the test of a gathering· plan is not whether it provides the best discount, but whether it provides the books (p. 111). The greatest gain . . . seems to lie in the way the suppliers have risen to their new responsibilities. Formerly they could feel that they'd done their part when they had sent what they could and reported on the balance ( p. 112). Any wholesaler who accepts a blanket or- der contract . . . accepts a new (and de- fined) type of responsibility. Like the li- brary book-selection staff itself, he may have for the first time a really precise defi- nition of what the library wants from him -and means to get. And he will be up against a staff with time to spend making sure they get it ( p. 112). 21b. Schaafsma, Carol. Review of Ad- vances in Understanding Approval and Gathering Plans in Academic Li- braries, in Library Resources & Tech- nical Services 15:557-8 (Fall1971). 22. Spyers-Duran, Peter and Gore, Dan- iel, eds. Economics of Approval Plans. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972. (Proceedings of the Third In- ternational Seminar on Approval and Gathering Plans in Large and Medi- um-Size Libraries, West Palm Beach, February 17-19, 1971.) Papers, unavailable at this writing, will include: Anderson, LeMoyne, and Rebuldela, Harriet, a review of technical procedures to take advantage of the economics that ap- proval plans offer. (See also entry no. 8a.) 0 Axford, H. William, a study demon- strating the economies effected by blanket and approval plans. (See also entry no. 19.) Gore, Daniel, plans for libraries with small budgets. Gormley, Mark, the possibility of fail- ure if the plans are not properly adminis- tered and monitored. Lane, David 0., the effects of approv- al plans on academic libraries. Blanket order and approval plans have come to occupy a separate section in the reviews of acquisitions published an- nually by Library Resources & Techni- cal Services. Ranging from brief men- tion to reviews of the year's major ar- ticles, they are: 23. Dougherty, Richard M. "Cooperative and Blanket Acquisitions Plans," in "Year's Work in Acquisitions," 19: 150-1 (Spring 1965). 24. ---. "Automation of Acquisition Work," in "Acquisition-1965 in Re- view," 10:171 (Spring 1966). 25. --- and Abigail McKinney. "The Nature and Scope of Acquisitions Work," in "Ten Years of Progress in Acquisitions: 1956-66," 11:292 (Sum- mer 1967). 26. Dahl-Hansen, Abigail, and Dougher- ty, Richard M. "Publisher Standing Order Plans," in "Acquisitions in 1967," 12:179-80 (Spring 1968). 27. --. "Approval Plans," in "Acqui- sitions Trends-1968," 13:376 (Sum- mer 1969). 28. Fristoe, Ashby J., and Myers, Rose E. "Blanket Orders and Approval Plans," in "Acquisitions in 1969," 14: 168-9 (Spring 1970). 29. --. "Approval Plans and Blanket Orders," in "Acquisitions in 1970," 15:135 (Spring 1971). There are packets of brochures, thesau- ri, lists of publishers, and customers' manuals describing approval plans and related services available from vendors, and, in addition, their services are de- scribed in appendices in the seminars on approval and gathering plans. 20 • 21 The following five offer plans for U.S. pub- lishers: 30. Richard Abel & Company, Box 4245, Portland, OR 97208 (20, p. 64-65, 119-29; 21, p. 116-18, 137- 52). 31. The Baker & Taylor Company, 50 Kirby Avenue, Somerville, NY 08876 (21,p. 120-2, 157-8). 32. Edco-Vis Associates, Box 95, Verona, WI 53593. 33. Midwest Library Service, 11400 Dor- sett Road, Maryland Heights, MO 63042 (21, p. 203- 5). 34. Stacey's, Division of Bro-Dart, Inc., 15255 East Don Julian Road, City of Industry, CA 91747 (Bro-Dart's Books- Coming-Into-Print program described in the seminar proceedings has been superseded by a science-technology plan at the Stacey division) . DISCUSSION: VENDORS Technical problems, aside from the selection process, are usually generalized and only briefly mentioned in the litera- ture. They have been presented in detail in only two articles, Thom8 and Rouse. 12• 21 A paper yet to be published, that of Anderson and Rebuldela, al- Approval Plans I 375 so discusses processing technicalities. 22 Some of the vendor-related difficulties that complicate technical procedures are discussed here. On the theoretical level an approval plan is an arrangement among three co- operating groups: publishers, vendors, and libraries. In practice, these are three centripetal forces. The problems with publishers are well known: advertisements far in ad- vance of publication, with title changes in the interim, postponed publication or unannounced cancellations; the pro- liferation of small publishers; the diffi- culty of reaching university depart- ments and professional associations; the same book published here and abroad. Libraries can be inefficient. They sometimes fail to adjust technical proc- essing to accommodate the demands of an approval plan or make use of the conveniences the vendors offer; they are frequently slow in paying bills, placing heavy demands on the financial struc- ture of the vendor; they fail to under- stand the limitations of an approval plan, producing subsequent misunder- standing by faculty and librarians alike; they sometimes fail their selection re- sponsibilities; they force vendors to meet individual processing require- ments, causing increased vendor over- head and subsequent higher costs for all libraries. Vendors, by placing themselves be- tween these two problem-prone groups are patently asking for their troubles. But they themselves are causing others. Beginning with advertising and promo- tion, they overstate their capabilities. Consider: Books from all major publishers .... Each month [the company's] new publication . . . keeps university, col- lege, and special libraries abreast of virtually all new books of interest to them. You'll be dealing with one source for new books from more than 4,000 pub- 376 I College & Research Libraries • September 1972 lishers. This program applies to all books in the humanities or the sci- ences, continuations, and monographs by commercial and non-commercial publishers. [The company] now supplies the books of more than 3,000 publishers. In fact [the company J will supply any U.S. book in print distributed through normal wholesale channels, including trade, University Press, text, reference and technical titles. The tendency, even in this day of supposedly sophisticated consumers, is to look upon book jobbers as specialists in the matter of liberating books from publishers. Vendors' public statements lead one to expect that the situation is well in hand, especially when company representatives in person verbally sup- port the advertising. One company, new to the approval-plan business, but which has obviously learned from its elders, says this: "We feel that it is unrealistic for any jobber to state that he obtains or warehouses, in fact that he even has contacts with all the United States Pub- lishers, let alone Foreign Houses." Approval plans for U.S. publications do not, because they cannot, supply "all" or "virtually all" of the academ- ically pertinent output of "4,000 pub- lishers" or even "3,000 publishers," ma- jor or otherwise. Vendors restrict their publisher coverage, as is verified by their lists of approval-plan publishers. Some specialty publishers will . not work through dealers; but others that would are conspicuously missing from approv- al publisher lists. Wilden-Hart proposes persuading jobbers, using the Encyclo- pedia of Associations as a base, to han- dle the more difficult task of acquiring the publications of institutes and pro- fessional associations as an alternative to the costly gift-and-exchange systems libraries now depend upon ( p. 404-5) ,13 "Jobbers are so conditioned to the com- mercial publishers who offer large dis- counts . . . that they have not had the perspicacity to see that the libraries are not in business to make a profit but to get those things they want" ( p. 405). Because approval plans/blanket or- ders do not blanket, prevailing opinion now is that approval plans must be mon- itored in the library by checking book receipts against Library of Congress proofs and other bibliographic tools. To insure complete coverage, even from the vendors' own publisher lists, this has to be done by the libraries, but it is not consistent with the companies' adver- tised and promotional claims. Further- more, claiming a missed book will not always produce the book, in spite of the statement that "it is a simple matter to Xerox a copy of the request and to claim it against the plan. . . . Such a move would insure the receipt of the desired item" ( p. 345) .12a There are four points to consider in regard to claiming: 1. A claim represents a book outside the vendor's routine. It is app-arently ex- tremely difficult to break into the nor- mal processing to make a place for a stray book, especially in a computer sys- tem and even with a manual system. One vendor's representative said in a private meeting, "On any claim or back order we don't make a penny. The most expensive thing to do is send an [ un- scheduled] book." 2. Claiming is enormously expensive for a library. If a library receives a re- quest for a book or discovers in moni- toring that a book expected on an ap- proval plan has not been received, the library logically will not order the book but will request the vendor to send it. It then probably files the request against the day the book arrives, and it must pe- riodically check the file to see what has been outstanding too long. Over the months, because vendors do not supply all books and because claims do not pro- duce all the known missed books, the file continuously enlarges. The library, ever hopeful, continues claiming. Melcher estimates from an internal cost study that it takes ten cents to file a single form and another ten cents to pull the form from the file ( p. 12, 21 ) -twenty cents for the filing operation for one claim.21a Add the number of claims and the number of times each is claimed, multiply by twenty cents, add the cost of Xeroxing and mailing, and add the unquantifiable costs of doing without the book in the meantime. In addition, the price of a book when an- nounced can and does increase during the time it is repeatedly claimed and eventually produced .or is ordered else- where. 3. The burden of seeing to it that all pertinent books arrive is on the library, not the vendor, who is advertising total- ity and selling the service. This is a fun- damental point: the library staff, if it monitors its plan and tries to claim missed books, is in the unpaid employ of the vendor. 4. One of the charges against an ap- proval plan, based on experience and the literature, is the uncertainty of knowing when, or even whether, a spe- cific book will arrive "particularly when it had been specially requested" (Dud- ley, p. 322) .n An approval plan will produce most of the books, an accurate statement of the generality. But, how can a library know which specific title will be in the group that is volunteered and which ti- tle will be among those that are missed so that the library can take immediate action? Assuming that the responsibility for monitoring coverage is the library's and not the vendor's, Wilden-Hart pro- poses a cooperative plan: " ... if one li- brary is assiduous in checking what it does not receive through approval plans, is then all the work involved for the benefit of one library and for one copy? . . . By notifying the jobber that indi- vidual requests from libraries on ap- proval plans may be significant items for other libraries, methods could be es- tablished to see that others benefit from Approval Plans I 377 the checking done. This could even be extended to sharing the bibliographical work in highly specialized fields ... " ( p. 404) .13 One library at least has re- peatedly made the point to a vendor that a claim could represent multiple sales to other libraries, but we are now back to point no. 1 in this section: if the book does not enter the system rou- tinely, it may never be entered. Another aspect of the question of vendor responsibility is whether his rep- resentative should sell approval plans indiscriminately. Or, because through extensive travel he becomes knowledge- able about many kinds of libraries, can he be expected to act as a professional counselor? Should libraries be required to pass with high marks an approval- plan aptitude test? The agent knows his approval plan. Can he be expected to study the library's internal procedures and judge whether they are compatible? The library knows its own internal structure, its own individuality, but it must rely heavily on the agent's descrip- tion of the approval plan to make a de- cision. Sheer increase in the number of customers cannot only overrun a ven- dor's staff so that it cannot support a representative's assurances, but the re- sulting problems caused by the mis- match can create complications and sub- sequent increased costs for the vendor and all his customers. Errors in invoicing, duplicates, late receipt of books, failure to follow the profile, and casual bibliographic data are other grievances lodged against the vendor. They are a minor part of the process numerically, but they take a dis- proportionate amount of time to cor- rect, and they drive costs up. Vendors do not always follow their own advice. The president of one of the major vendors, in a speech before publishers in New York in 1962, was cited in Publisherl Weekly as follows: [He] made the point that library budgets are for the most part static, 378 I College & Research Libraries • September 1972 .and any way in which the expenses of library clerical work can be decreased means more money from the budget available for the purchase of books. [He] mentioned that more than a few libraries have simply stopped ordering books from publishers who, through delays in shipping, incomplete orders, and unintelligible invoices, cause a mountain of paper work. Whether books are supplied on ap- proval or by order, by the publisher or through a vendor, the problems are the same, and the comments underscore the gap between the vendor's intent and his execution of bibliographic and account- ing records. This is not always just a matter of inability to anticipate a Li- brary of Congress entry; rather it is of- ten a matter of an invoice that does not match its book or an invoice for a non- existent book, requiring correspondence and special controls over the books and invoices until the matter can be re- solved. DISCUSSION: RESEARCH Most of the literature is descriptive; that is, the articles generalize about the theory and philosophy of an ideal ap- proval plan or discuss procedures within a library. Those that have attempted sta- tistical analysis include an in-house study at the University of California,5 M.aher,9 Lane, 10 Dudley,11 Evans,l5 Ax- ford,19· 22 and Atkinson. 20 The need for fmther research has been stated by Wilden-Hart,13 Evans,15 and Axford, 19· 22 with specific sugges- tions for study given by Wilden-Hart and Evans. Approval plans can be a tremendously helpful adjunct to a total acquisitions program. Another advantageous aspect, if it is followed up, is that they have an astonishing ability to throw into relief organizational weaknesses of the library and to amplify the need to consider col- lection-building throughout university- wide planning. But it is possible that an imaginatively conceived and vital selec- tion tool will be lost to libraries if the complications, suspected or demonstrat- ed, that they create in acquisitions proc- esses and the subsequent increased costs should begin to be demonstrated in fu- ture research studies. Administrators who have accepted, and have stated pub- licly their acceptance of, the theory and philosophy of approval plans will not be .able to accept the costs. The following represent some aspects of approval plans that have received lit- tle attention in the literature; many studies have investigated the subject as generalities, but not all have been con- sidered in specific relation to an approv- al plan. -The relation of the approval plan to the on-going acquisitions program. How much does the money spent now on current acquisitions really reduce over the years the amount needed for retrospective purchases, considering in- complete coverage, delays in receipt of books, and the need for and futility of claiming? -In-library costs of technical proc- essing, especially for books not received: the costs of monitoring the program. Axford's study indicates the economy of an approval plan (for books re- ceived) but, because libraries themselves are a variable, his findings may not be applicable generally.19, 22 -Prices of books; the total cost of an approval program and the cost by subject as .an aid to budgeting, both li- brary and departmental. Wilden-Hart said: "Research has yet to be done on the allocation of budgets by libraries using approval plans" ( p. 403) .13 Sta- tistics based on the amount of publish- ing are not reliable for this purpose be- cause for one reason or another not all books published are received; vendors' curtailed publisher lists will exclude many of them. The University of Ne- braska and Florida Atlantic have been maintaining unpublished, therefore not generally available, statistical records (Axford, p. 369) .19 One vendor cannot supply its representatives with cost-by- classification figures. -Computers. Does, and how does, a computer system reduce the complicated technical detail an approval plan thrusts upon an acquisitions unit? How can un- verified bibliographic data be handled to avoid complicating computer controls of the records? Boss says: "We have not found a way to use the computer to handle blanket orders" ( p. 20) .21 Also, is it possible for vendors to reduce scholarly publishing, which is biblio- graphically complex, to computer pro- gramming, which is inherently rigid and literal? One company has transferred its costly and unreliable computer-selec- tion program to a previously organized manual system. -Cataloging in publication. If an ap- proval plan does produce books more rapidly than title-by-title ordering, some of them still wait in the library until the Library of Congress produces the cataloging and the cards. Presumably, cataloging in publication will speed li- brary cataloging, but weaknesses are dif- ficult to foresee. To take advantage of the cataloging printed in the book, one must have the book; to have the book, the publisher must send it to the ven- dor, and the vendor must send it to the library. Some vendors use as a way of announcing books a Library of Con- gress cataloging information service that is received several weeks in advance of proof-slip distribution; it would suf- fer from the same disadvantage of LC' s late cataloging of some materials. The preproof-slip service suggests another area to explore: a comparison of the ef- ficiency of vendors' announcement me- dia. -Selection. The subject has been thoroughly discussed in the literature, and Evans has expressed the need for further research, including "the need to examine the entire matter of acquisi- Approval Plans I 379 tions procedures in an objective and de- tailed manner. Too many of the deci- sions in acquisitions work are based on feelings and opinions rather than on ev- idence and fact" ( p. 307) .15 One extralibrary consideration can be expanded. Vendors have standing orders with publishers. Whether a vendor is working with all books of scholarly in- terest, or specializing in selected areas, he will have to describe to each publish- er just what he has in mind-his own profile; the profile is then subject to in- terpretation by each publisher. The genesis of selection, obviously, is the editorial staff of the publishing houses, which must necessarily place economics before a library's esoteric needs. Ap- proval-plan books thus move through three screenings before they ever appear in a shipment to a library. Related to selection is the quality of publishing. A query frequently posed by faculty is whether approval plans with their supposed automatic library market promote excessive publishing of inconsequential books. One answer is probably no more than the publish-or- perish dictum under which most facul- ties try to survive. In academic publish- ing the faculty itself supplies most of the manuscripts that later return as ap- proval-plan submissions. The whole question of the publishing-selection process could be explored, in addition to the reverse effect of approval plans on publishing . . -Subject bibliographers. Some opin- ion holds that when bibliographers are used for difficult and esoteric areas, like Slavic studies, they can work to the dis- advantage of general areas, like history, and therefore produce the same imbal- ance of the collection that an approval plan is supposed to correct. Is then one unit of a library's acquisitions organiza- tion canceling the efforts of another? Another aspect of the subject is suggest- ed by Wilden-Hart, who proposes a study of how approval plans "are slowly 380 I College & Research Libraries • September 1972 changing the work of a subject bibliog- rapher" ( p. 405) .1a -The long-term value of the books the approval plan produces, with its concomitant problems of shelving and subsequent weeding, which in turn are part of the costs. Studies using circula- tion during a fixed period as the base may not reliably measure this precise point because the focus of interest, es- pecially in sociology and political sci- ence and possibly to an even greater ex- tent in scientific and technological re- search, is constantly shifting. In addi- tion, there is elapsed time before the ap- pearance of bibliographies and indexes that stimulate continuing use. A book not used during the survey could be in demand later, although Evans says that some authors have found that future use is closely correlated with past use (p. 307).15 On the other hand, the whole point could be canceled by the philosophy that a new book is news, and that a li- brary user should have any book avail- able so that he is then able to decide for himself whether it is suitable for his purpose, now or in the future. If he de- cides not, the book's "use" will not be reflected in circulation figures, but it will certainly have been "used," and for a purpose. It suggests a survey of library policies and procedures for selection from approval-plan shipments. Research will answer the questions, but then ways to apply the information must be found. Some writers are begin- ning to suggest cooperative ventures as possibilities. Vendors and libraries would surely gain by hying to imple- ment such programs. Libraries need the vendors' expert assistance in dealing with publishers. Vendors could profit by the specialized bibliographic knowledge of the librarians and also by a greater understanding of the philosophical thinking their approval plans promote in libraries in contrast to the demanding logistical problems that must engage much of the vendors' efforts. An ap- proval plan is a continuum; it is not a mutually exclusive two-step geograph- ical process of shipping cartons of books from one spot and receiving them at another. Wilden-Hart has outlined an interli- brary monitoring program and a plan to bring under control the publications of associations.1 3 A F. Schnaitter has proposed liaison-librarians to work with vendors at their locations ( p. 348) .12a There are others: -The literature survey turned up two in-house studies: the University of California study of some of the me- chanics and the University of Oklaho- ma study of vendor reliability.9 In addi- tion to the University of Nebraska and Florida Atlantic statistical studies, there are undoubtedly others. A clearinghouse of such otherwise unavailable informa- tion could be established and lists pub- lished regularly for comparison among libraries and for points of departure for more generalized surveys. -Another aspect of mutual library- vendor understanding is described by the same company president quoted ear- lier; he "attributed many of the prob- lems to a lack of communication be- tween the publisher and the library pur- chaser, each of whom has his adminis- trative requirements to fulfill, but sel- dom realizes the needs of the other." As a way of implementing the need for better library-vendor communica- tion, perhaps vendors would consider newsletters to their customers detailing the realities of publisher-vendor rela- tions and of book-publishing economics and logistics. Descriptions of their own organization and procedures, with direc- tories of personnel, would be helpful. Librarians, in their relations with li- brary users, deal with facts and with ideas of substance, not in unsubstanti- ated promotional claims. Because of their stock in trade and because of the unanimity of support for the approval- plan concept, librarians are psychologi- cally in a position to turn a vendor's spe- cial knowledge, if he will share it can- didly, into an informed effort to make approval plans functionally acceptable. Approval Plans I 381 And as librarians learn more of their own internal specifics, they will in turn have practical information to share with vendors.