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Blackwell's Approval Plan

The library purchases Blackwell's bibliographic records for books received on approval. The records are loaded into Pegasus by Tuesday; the books generally arrive the following Thursday or Friday.

Blackwell's provides annual statistics including volumes and prices of approval material. Note that North American Approval Program Coverage and Cost Studies are for all material handle on their approval program, not just what was sent to UCSB.

The approval plan brings current U.S. imprints primarily in the social sciences and humanities. Lydia Agadjanova places the books on numbered review shelves. To accept a book write your initials and your fund code on the Blackwell's slip and put the book on the large wooden truck labeled "approved". After you review a shelf, check off your name on the list attached to each shelf.

If you reject the book, check off the reason on the back of the Blackwell's slip and initial. Put the book on the reject shelf. You may elect to accept a book that someone else has put on the reject shelf.

Lydia moves books that remain on the shelves and that are on the reject shelves to the "Last Chance" shelf. This is your Last Chance to accept a book that you might have overlooked, that a colleague did not accept, or that got put on a wrong shelf. Any book that remains on the shelf for a week is returned to Blackwell;s.

Be sure to review the approval shelves at least weekly. If you are going to be away for a week or more, make arrangements with Lydia Agadjanova, x2421 for the books to be held.

Approval plan profiles can easily be changed to bring in more or less material or different subjects. To see the profiles for your collection areas, check Blackwell's Collection Manager. The library id is LUSB; the password is your last name; the id is your first name. With your own logon, you can set your display preferences. If collection Manager does not recognize your password/id, send a message from the Collection Manager logon page to customer service requesting a password/id. In the meanwhile, you can use the generic library logon: id=i32hrj password=9licit.

Collection Manager shows all of the individual profiles including publisher restrictions and non-subject parameters such as level and type of publication. In addition it shows Blackwell's subjects so that you can see how you might want to alter your profile. You can search for titles by keyword, ISBN, LC classification, Blackwell's subjects, subprofile and other access methods. The results show titles and how they were treated in light of our subprofiles. Blackwell's keeps making improvements on the system so be sure to check the welcome and help screens often.

University Press Imprints

The university press plan brings in books in virtually all subject areas except law and medicine which are:

published by an American or British university press and
distributed by an American university press or by a British university press which has a presence in the U.S.

University press books that do not fit these criteria are offered on form selection.

Changes to this part of the plan can be made only by approval from Cecily Johns.

The library purchases processing from Blackwell's for university press books. Most arrive bar coded, property stamped, and labeled and a bib record has been FTP'd into Pegasus. These books are not returnable unless they are defective. The AUL-Collections may determine that a book is not worth putting in the collection; it will be discarded.

Notification

If you wish to be notified of the receipt of a particular book that is expected on either part of the Approval but is not yet received, contact Lydia Agadjanova, our Approval Receipts Manager. She will create a brief provisional Pegasus record for the title and put the note notify <your name> in the copy level note field. On receipt of the book, she will print the copy holdings screen, highlight the note, and insert the printout into the book. The usual notification points will let you know that the title has been received. Use this service judiciously. Remember that a great many requests could have the general effect of slowing the whole receipt operation down. This service is not meant for situations in which the book is needed "rush", in which case we would direct order the book (provided it is available), rather than wait for the approval shipment.

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Collection Manager's Manual

Author: Laura Nanna
Sent revisions to Lynne Hayman
Last modified: August 12, 1998