2018 Charleston Library Conference

Librarians and their patrons enjoy access to a wealth of content today. An explosive growth of books, dissertations, reports, data-sets and emerging e-content like blogs and open access journals has created a rich feast for readers, scholars, scientists, researchers.

But on the flipside, workflows and supporting systems haven’t kept up, creating unprecedented problems for the librarians who are trying to bring it all together – redundant, manual workflows; low circulating titles that eat up shelf space; multiple vendor platforms, invoicing, and access models.

What kind of new system or systems do we need? How might we address the major pain points? In this lively session, a panel of librarians with expertise in acquisition and selection will discuss this current environment and how they’re working within it. You’ll learn about:

• Work-arounds and best practices that help reduce errors in manual processes
• Short cuts that deal with redundant workflows
• Ways to organize vendor information and interaction
• How to keep approval plans up-to-date and useful
• Using analytics and DDA to reduce just-in-case buying

We’ll wrap up our discussion with a wish list for the future: what librarians want and need to simplify this complex environment.