Outside the mainstream(sourcing, selecting and acquiring difficult

material)

Graham Camfield, Paul Horsler

How do we select?

• Each selector in Information Services has an area of responsibility

• Assigned via language, geographic area or subject specialism (law)

• Variety of selection tools

English language (US)Grey literature (UK)

English language UKSpanish / Portuguese (official & non-official)Latin America (official & non-official)Reference Collection

UK, Ireland official publicationsFrench, German, and Italian (official & non-official)

Russian and East EuropeanDutch and ScandinavianEnglish (official & non-official)Asian officials

African (official & non-official)US official

Law (English and foreign)EDC

IGOs

Customised orders

• Responsible for an increasing number of our purchases (English language from US and UK; French, German, and Italian)

• Based on subject profile given to vendor• Looking to expand where advantageous and

practical• Do not cover official publications very well, if

at all.

Standing Orders

• Order for items that are part of a series• We take everything in that series• Handled by the Special Acquisitions

Unit (SAU)

Firm orders

• Orders for items outside of standing orders and approval plans

• Selection made from traditional tools / sources and recommendations

Exchanges

• Limited material still obtained via exchange agreement

• Chiefly UN documents

Outside the mainstream

• Other sections get involved

• Special Acquisitions Unit (SAU)• Interlending and Document Delivery

(IDD)

Special Acquisition Unit

• Grey Literature• Official publications, e.g. census• Standing orders [official and non

official]• Replacement items;

lost/missing/damaged • Out of print books• AV material

Out of PrintInternet has made searching and sourcing easier, eg. Amazon,

Abebooks

Alibris now main OP vendor

•Alibris selects based on customised order parameters•Good for large replacement projects•They are supplied directly with titles we need for teaching from the reading list system

Standing orders

• Number of standing orders with suppliers such as Dandy for British officials and IGO publications

• Suppliers websites can help track progress, e.g Harrassowitz

• Many gifts received become standing orders

Replacing official publications

• Reliant on government organisations to retain print copies

• Contact departments directly or try to obtain from website if available

• URL not always stable, so will occasionally print and bind

AV material

• Academics request AV material for lectures/reading lists• Can be off-air recordings or commercial • Not easy to replace but we use: BUFVC: Trilt, Moviemail, Frif.com (for

documentaries), Insight media. May make a master copy in the future• May be possible in future for Centre for Learning Technology to

stream these

If we cannot find it:

• User can always use IDD service • SAU will continue to look for as can

use wish list facility • SAU trace about 95% of OP and

replacement items

Interlending and Document Delivery• Handle requests for material from LSE users• Supply other libraries with material from our

collection in accordance with lending policy• Fulfil roughly 70% of requests for own users

and 85% from other libraries

Initial Requests

• Most difficult items come up at this point usually as a result of a poor reference

• Use a number of sources - COPAC, M25. SUNCAT, KVK, Worldcat

External Requests

• Not as many difficult ones in this category

• Sometimes have to use sources mentioned to find items that are in our collection

Types of Difficult Material

• US Government• United Nations • References from the Internet• Foreign language especially journals

US Government

• Use WorldCat to locate SU doc numbers

• Not always easy as have to play around with the titles

• Need to check our own holdings before sending as not catalogued

United Nations

• By far the hardest• Use the UN databases for finding document

number• Mostly referred to the UN specialist if we do

not know the document number• Most UN requests are for material missing

from our deposit collection