Ordering Books

Henry Buhl Library

Ordering Books and Journal Subscriptions

One of the obligations — and privileges — of faculty members is ordering new and replacement books and journal subscriptions that will enhance the teaching and learning of their students.

Ordering Books:

Each department or major program is allotted new book money each year and may determine how they as a faculty group wish to distribute the funds among themselves. Consult your group's Library Committee representative or program coordinator for allocation details and an explanation of the process used in ordering books and journals.

Consult Barbra Munnell, coordinator of collection development, for assistance in finding and selecting books to order (x3824, bmmunnell@gcc.edu). See the links for Using Choice Reviews Online and Other Sources of Book Reviews for lists and reviews of books in your discipline.

Submit your book orders to Jill Forsythe, acquisitions (x2047, jaforsythe@gcc.edu). Please speak directly with Jill to expedite rush orders for reserve shelves. You may call Jill at any time to check the status of an order.

Ordering Journals:

Placing an order for a journal subscription is a more serious, long-term undertaking than placing an order for a book. Average costs for journals rise by 10-15% each year, and much more for selected titles. A journal subscription also carries with it the need to make that paper subscription permanent, either through binding, microform, or electronic means, all of which come at an additional price.

Departments and programs are not allocated funds for journals. Rather, there is one fund for all journal subscriptions. Faculty make petition for new subscriptions through their departments or programs, in an effort to coordinate their journal offerings for the good of their majors. We ask that department and program faculty work together to choose a core set of journal subscriptions essential to their majors and to rely on full-text databases, indexing/abstracting in databases and e-journal web sites, and funded document delivery to retrieve particular articles from other good but unessential journals.

The library policy sets few restrictions on department/program choices for subscriptions but the three restrictions that follow are set in stone. Note that although all three must be present before subscription takes place, they are noted here in order of perceived importance:

(a) the journal has to be readable and understandable by an intelligent undergraduate
(b) the journal has to be indexed in one of the many indexing formats found in the library
(c) the journal has to be reasonable in cost

Discuss journal requests first with your chair/program coordinator and fellow faculty, then with Joyce Kebert, serials librarian (x3821, jmkebert@gcc.edu).

The Library's policy is to move quickly and completely to electronic means of archival storage and to eliminate binding and microforms as much as possible.