Apologies in advance for duplicate postings.
ALCTS Web Course: Fundamentals of Acquisitions
Session:
February 27–March 23
This is a four-week online course that focuses on the basics of library acquisitions:
- goals and methods of acquiring monographs and serials
- financial management of library collections budgets
- relationships among acquisitions librarians, library booksellers, subscription agents, and publishers.
This course provides a broad overview of the operations involved in acquiring materials after the selection decision is made.
In FOA, we distinguish between collection development, which involves the selection of materials for the library; and acquisitions, which orders, receives, and pays for those materials. In many libraries, selecting and acquiring materials may be done in the same department—in the smallest libraries perhaps even by the same person. In larger libraries, selection may be done by a collection development department and/or designated subject specialists, while a separate department acquires the selected materials. Acquisitions, in essence, is the business side of bringing materials into the library or licensing access to library resources.
This course is one-third of the Collection Management Elective course approved by the Library Support Staff Certification Program (LSSCP). Collection Management Elective FAQ