The Impact of Approval Plans on Acquisitions Operations and Work Flow

Many papers about approval plans address their effect on collection development and subject bibliographers. We are told that approval plans provide systematic coverage of profiled subjects, and ensure that libraries will not miss newly published titles. We also ace informed that approval plans allow our subject bibliographers and/or faculty to more closely evaluate monographs so that they can make wise purchase selections. In addition, they free up our professionals from the time-consuming work of title-by-title selection. All of these statements are true. Approval plans have made a world of difference in the area of collection development. Few papers on approval plans, however, address the impact they have on our daily acquisitions operations and work flow. This paper will focus on their impact on acquisitions procedures and the personnel who process them.