Evaluating Approval Plans and Other Methods of Book Selection Through System Management Reports

Basic statistical information that resides in automated circulation and acquisitions systems can be processed to support objective decision-making for developing and refining approval plans. While extracting useful collection management information from most mainframe integrated library systems has been cumbersome, a number of researchers have succeeded in producing exemplary collection management and use studies by using local programming and manual intervention to supplement what their online systems could do. Approval plan managers today can capitalize on their analyses by these librarian-researchers and apply their evaluation techniques specifically to approval plan operations. Librarians also can, or will soon be able to take advantage of improved data manipulation on newer library management systems with more flexibility and improved report-writing.