OPINION & COMMENT
Working in partnership?
BOB NARDINI, YBP Vice President considers how Continuations and Approval Plans can work together
For many years, YBP has been a vendor of both approval plans and continuations and — having learned what our customers need from these two quite separate core services — we've tailored our services in a pretty unique way. Today, we routinely include continuation titles in our approval plan coverage and all YBP/Lindsay and Howes approval plan customers benefit from this capability.
All-inclusive
During our 2000/2001 fiscal year we profiled some 65,000 new titles for YBP/Lindsay and Howes' approval plan customers and around one-third of these fell within a series or continuation category — such as annual, non-monographic series, numbered or unnumbered monographic series, and multi-volume set. This inclusiveness enables both YBP and Lindsay and Howes to offer approval plan customers a spectrum of choices on many continuation titles.
Flexible approach
Customers can request we ship all volumes within a series or other continuation title on approval. This powerful instruction overrides normal profile parameters to create a standing order for titles within our approval program — at the approval discount — with returns privileges and technical services options.
Similarly, they may exclude all volumes within a given series from their approval plan. This approach — routinely used to control duplication against standing orders — is also a way to exclude series known to be of no interest to the library.
Approval customers can opt for notification slips on all volumes within a given series, overriding normal profile parameters and giving libraries the power to respond quickly to budget cutbacks, or simply to buy a series selectively. Or a library may allow the approval plan profile to work normally for volumes within a series, imposing no series-specific instruction. Here, the profile identifies the volumes likely to be of highest interest.
We've meshed our continuations and title files and observe procedures to offer customers maximum flexibility. Our systems eliminate duplication across continuations, approval and firm order shipments, as well as between YBP and Lindsay and Howes shipments. And all continuations activity is accessible in GOBI™.
So can continuations and approval plans work together? — we think so, yes.
