Recommendation Procedures

The following procedures apply to published monographs, videos, and compact discs. Other materials (e.g. periodicals, databases, microforms, government documents), are handled on a case-by-case basis.

Tools and Help

Tools (provided by the library to help in making recommendations)

• reviews from Choice (overviews of recent, high-quality publications);
• publisher catalogs and/or specific recommendations from departmental liaison librarians;
• order cards, which outline the required information.

Liaisons

The Director of the library also appoints a professional librarian to be a liaison to each academic department.





Recommending Specific Titles

Each department is responsible for forwarding recommendations to the library.




Be Timely!

Normal orders must be in at least 12 weeks before they are needed. Materials may take several months to be sent from a library vendor. Anything needed in a more timely fashion needs to be marked as "Rush"

Each department is responsible to send in recommendations in a timely manner vis-a-vis the budget and purchasing cycle. (It is necessary that the budget for each discipline be allocated to orders by March 1st of each year.)



Check the Library Catalog

Be aware of what we already have. The academic department is asked to check the Library Catalog and make sure Lake Forest College does not already own the desired work. (This helps reduce to a minimum the amount of paperwork between the library and the department, and lets professors know what is already here).



Clearly Identify the Desired Work in Writing

Specific information is needed to clearly identify a work. (If a work has multiple editions, the latest will be acquired unless otherwise specified).



• Title and author and format (book, video, CD, etc.) are essential
• Publisher and date (and edition information) are usually required
• ISBN is very helpful
• The name of the requestor is needed for tracking purposes




If any of this information is missing, the order process will be delayed, and may result in the acquisition of an incorrect work.



To ensure the pertinent information is included use order cards provided by the library or circle and write your name next to desired titles on the Choice photocopies.



Clearly Note Special Needs

Exceptional information about a title should be clearly noted. e.g:

• a specific edition desired
• multiple copies needed for a large class assignment
• RUSH - (needed before the usual 12 week window)
• NOTIFY ME - to get a note when it arrives




Send the Recommendations to the Right Person

Check with your department to see if you have a member of your department handling library orders for your discipline. Some departments route all requests via a single member of the department, while others have individual faculty send requests directly to their departmental liaison librarian.

Ordering Policy

The Lake Forest College Library acquisitions process supports and implements the criteria established in the Director's Collection Development policy. Some important principles of that policy and how they affect acquisitions are outlined below.





A) Materials are acquired primarily to directly support the coursework at Lake Forest College.

The library can only allocate a limited amount of resources to support faculty research that is not directly related to coursework. Access to advanced research materials are primarily supported through interlibrary loan service or referrals to research collections.





B) Faculty recommendations are the primary source of building our collection.

Your input is vital if our students are to have ready access to useful materials.





C) Hard-bound editions are generally preferred to paper-bound editions.

Due to significantly greater discounts, their quality and their longevity, hard-bound editions are often a more cost-effective way to acquire and preserve information for current and future library users. As the quality of paper-bound editions has increased (especially from academic presses), a paper-bound edition will be ordered if possible if a hard-bound edition is not available (or the cost differential is very great).





D) Multiple copies of a work are acquired only to meet exceptional user demand.

The budget, size, and usage patterns of the library indicate only one copy per title is usually acquired.



E) The library does not acquire textbooks required for a course.

Most textbook titles are constantly being updated, making the current edition out-dated in a brief period of time.



F) Items normally must be ordered significantly (2-3 months) before they are needed.

In order to efficiently utilize the acquisitions budget and library personnel resources, the library purchases most items through discount wholesalers. Such orders often take 6-8 weeks or more to arrive once the order is placed by library acquisitions staff. Therefore, the entire process -- from submitting an order card to having the book available for use -- can easily take three months or more.





G) The library does not reimburse faculty who purchase a book for the library.

Exceptions can be made only if pre-approved by the library. It is much more efficient and cost-effective for the library to purchase materials directly from wholesale book vendors. The library receives significant discounts, does not pay for tax, shipping or handling, and has time and cost-efficient means to pay these vendors.





H) Orders for a fiscal year need to be in by March 1st.

Only materials actually physically received by May 30 may be charged to the fiscal year budget ending that date. As it can take 2-3 months to receive a title from a discount vendor, it is very important that all titles ordered for a specific FY budget be received by March 1st.





I) The library acquisitions staff handles:

published monographs

multi-volume sets of books

DVDs

VHS video tapes

audio compact discs

CD-ROMs

select "unpublished" materials (e.g. theses)





Orders for other types of materials (e.g. serials, microfilm, government documents) are handled by the library on a case-by-case basis.





J) New serials titles cannot normally be added.

Due to extremely high inflation and limited budgets, new serial titles (e.g. journals) cannot be added without first dropping other titles to cover the cost. (Price increases for academic journals often average 10% or more per year.) Periodicals represent a different audience than monographs (few journals are written specifically for the undergraduate reader) and represent a different, ongoing, inflationary commitment of library resources.

Student Suggestions

The library welcomes recommendations from students as to what titles to purchase. We should note that we do not purchase textbooks, nor does the library maintain a large collection of popular fiction. Students are welcome at the Lake Forest (Public) Library, which houses a large collection of popular fiction and magazines just two blocks down the street on Deerpath.