Page History

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Please see "Inventory of Policies, Practices & Workflows - Columbia," "Inventory of Policies, Practices & Workflows - Cornell," and "Significant Similarities & Differences."

The OAR Unit at Columbia ingests order requests from selectors by email, the Pre-Order Online Form (POOF), GOBI, and drop-offs in the Selector Review Area.  Columbia processes "Priority 1" orders (patron requests, course reserves, regular rush) first before other orders.  A majority of the orders are submitted with vendors pre-assigned by selectors and in the case of selections made in GOBI, are ordered with Columbia's main domestic vendor YBP.  Order requests submitted without an assigned vendor are assigned vendors based on country of publication, or language.  Cornell receives orders from selectors through World Cat Select (WCS), POOF, email, and drop off/order tray.  Cornell processes orders within a 24 hour timeframe.  Vendors are assigned by WCS, language, type of material, or type of order (rush, Inter-Library Loan, reserve). 

Both Columbia and Cornell handle similar material, process priority and non-priority orders, and receive them in similar ways.  However, there are significant differences (imbed) in policies, practices and workflows between the two institutions and some of these are inherent in the systems utilized to ingest and place orders.  Columbia utilizes GOBI as its main discovery, selection and ordering tool for domestic and UK imprints that are not specialized material, e.g., fine art and architecture and music scores.  The POOF is primarily used by selectors to submit orders and OAR staff enter the orders directly into Voyager after ingesting the record using WorldCat's Connexion.  OAR Unit staff are authorized to approve purchase orders in Voyager and are reviewed by the Order Unit Librarian or Head, MAS before they are forwarded to vendors.  Cornell does not use GOBI in the same manner as Columbia.  Cornell's primary discovery, selection and ordering tool is WCS.  The use of WCS at Cornell informs their practices and workflows.  Cornell's ordering staff do not approve POs in Voyager; supervisors of ordering staff approve POs on a daily basis.  Cornell's ordering staff create new orders using the POOF whereas Columbia enters them directly into Voyager.

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Investigation: Members of the Working Group shared and posted respective documentation on dependencies and limitations on Basecamp and the 2CUL wiki and discussed details during phone conversations, and a face-to-face meeting.

Please see "Dependencies & Limitations."

Columbia and Cornell's ordering units depend on external departments such as collection development, Information Technology (IT), and accounting which can sometimes inhibit their ordering processes.  Columbia cannot conduct business with a vendor until they have been set up by the University's Vendor Management team.  Cornell is a bit more lax with regards to doing business with new vendors.  Credit cards are strictly controlled at Columbia and only the Order Unit Librarian and Head, MAS possess credit cards for firm ordering.  Cornell's ordering staff have their own credit cards.  Both Columbia and Cornell rely on their respective collection development departments whenever an order is submitted on an overspent fund.  Columbia must ask for collection development's permission to proceed on orders over $500. 

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