Departmental Book Purchasing

Departmental Budget

Annual allocations are determined using a formula that includes the following data: circulation statistics, interlibrary loan statistics, the average cost of a title in the discipline, the number of MBC student credit hours generated in 100 level and above courses for each discipline, and number of majors in a department.

Resources for Book Selection

Every six weeks the library representative will receive relevant Choice cards for review by the faculty in the discipline. Choice cards as well as ChoiceReviews.online contain critical reviews of scholarly publications. In addition, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books In Print and *Academic Search Complete are resources for finding information and reviews about books.

*To find reviews in Academic Search Complete, type a few words from the book title then highlight "Book Review" in the document type box.

Deadlines

In order to make new material available during the current academic year there are two deadlines for ordering books. Each discipline is required to submit orders totaling one half of their allocation by December 1. The remaining orders must be submitted by April 1.

Placing Orders

Orders may be placed in a variety of ways and must be approved by the library discipline representative. If you have a Choice card, sign the card and submit it to your library discipline representative who will then initial it and send the card to the Acquisitions Coordinator.

If you are using ChoiceReviews.online, print the title, have it initialed by your library representative, and forward to the Acquisitions Coordinator.

You may also fill out a book order slip (you may request them from the Acquisitions Coordinator x7087 or print a blank form ) and submit it to your library discipline representative.

Rush Orders

Fill out a book order slip or a Choice Card as stated above, have it initialed by your library representative, write in bold colored letters at the top RUSH and send the slip individually to the Acquisitions Coordinator.

Reports

Each semester an email report listing all titles purchased for the department, will be sent approximately every six weeks to all of the members of each discipline.

Status of a Book Order

Search the title in the library catalog. The catalog will tell you if an item is on order, in acquisitions, cataloguing, circulation, or checked out. If the discipline has submitted an order but the item does not appear in the catalog, it is still in processing and has not yet been ordered. When books are ready to be checked out, they are shelved on the new book cart on the main floor of the library. The titles also appear on the new book list. Notification of the most recent book list is sent to faculty via email.

Non-print Materials

Not more than 20% of each departmental budget may be spent on non-print materials. Please keep in mind that print and non-print materials purchased with library funds become part of the library collection and are available to the entire college community.