Starting Acquisitions

If you believe that Acquisitions may be useful for your library system, here are some things you may want to consider.

Training

Like the cataloging CAT1 training, Acquisitions training is required before staff are given Acquisitions permissions.

Training is generally one day of in-person training and is conducted by the PINES Acquisitions Specialist. Any staff member needing ACQADMIN or ACQFIN permissions is required to complete this training before being granted permissions. It is highly encouraged that other staff who will be using the Acquisitions module also receive training.

After the one day in-person training, additional online screensharing sessions will be set up to continue training. The intent is that after getting an overview of how Acquisitions functions, that much of the training will go hand-in-hand as users start to work with the module so they retain the information more easily and have a better idea of what questions to ask.

Soft Skills

It's not a *requirement* to start Acquisitions, but it is a good idea that if you're interested in using Acquisitions that the person who does your ordering and your bookkeeper have an open working relationship. Acquisitions needs to be kept up to date as far as available funds, so if your bookkeeper moves funds without letting your ordering person know then Acquisitions has just become useless for keeping track of budgets.

Monetary Investments

If your library wishes to do EDI ordering, each location that directly receives materials from the vendor will need to have a SAN. These are purchased from Bowker and cost $150 each. So for example, if you receive all purchased materials at one central location, you would only need one SAN. If you have purchased materials drop-shipped to 3 different branches, you would need 3 SANs.

Most of the libraries in Georgia already have SAN numbers. To confirm if your library system and/or branches have SANs, please see this spreadsheet. All information is taken from the 2017-2018 edition of the American Library Directory.

To download MARC order files from vendors to be uploaded into Evergreen, some vendors require that your account have a particular setting enabled. You may want to review the list of vendors who offer MARC downloads to check if your vendors' offer this service and if there is an additional fee. Uploading MARC order files into Evergreen is not required, but it is highly recommended.