Hi,

At Brunel we have been using Talis Aspire to do reviews. It is very complex as we do not have uniform purchasing rules and ratios established (so checkers need to refer to a handy dandy guide while checking). However, it has cut the time spent on the availability and acquisitions - give or take as we are still inputting lists in Talis Aspire and that time is included in calculations.
Below is not the best way, I'm sure, to go about things but it is what we did last year...
We've got four "states" set up so lists go from  Acquisitions review, to Digital reading review (if necessary), to Subject librarian review and then to Metadata review state for final checks and stays there till orders are fulfilled or order approval is withdrawn. The advantages are that Subject librarians and Digital reading checks take place in another part of the physical library but setting the list to a different review state will auto-generate an e-mail to the person who needs to do the next step in the review process.
We've been using the review logs to indicate where "existing stock is sufficient" and where we have put items "on order" for Subject librarians to approve or cancel on Oasis (Coutts) and we have also used the logs to tell the Digital readings checker (there is only one at present) which articles or book chapters need searching for and ordering.
The librarians use the log entries for a final review of orders before approving or cancelling.
It's definitely quicker for short lists and people checking those long lists (+100 items) are grateful as they don't lose their place in the list AND they can order the list alphabetically by title and NOT check any item twice.

It could get better, I'm sure, and we are currently reviewing how we came improve over last year - but we are trying!

Cheers
Leslie

-----Original Message-----
From: Talis Aspire Users [mailto:LIS-[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andy Ekins
Sent: 06 March 2013 10:34
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Review process

Michael,

That's really interesting. I raised the review process as one of the areas that needs attention from the newly formed dev group. The idea of being able to plug in purchasing ratios or rules was something that we thought would be really useful. Having said that I would image it would be difficult to develop one solution that would encompass all institutions' review and acquisition requirements. For example our rules are very flexible and don't lend themselves to an automated approach:

---
Core-text:
For some schools the UG ratio is 1 book for every 8 students For other schools the UG ratio is 1 book for every 10 students If an e-books is purchased we usually double the ratio for print (1:16 or 1:20) For PG the ratio changes to anything from 1:3 to 1:10 depending on the school (all these rules are flexible depending on things like cohort size, funds available, cost of item, size of collection, etc, etc)

Recommended text (our main collection):
The ration for UG can be anything up to 1:16 If an e-book is available it is usually doubled to include anything up to 1:32 (again rules are flexible)

And then there are different rules for 'Background reading' and 'Suggested for student purchase'!
---

Given our very flexible approach and the likelihood that most institutions are doing something equally flexible, I'm not sure that Aspire could ever accommodate such a complexity of rules. I wonder if exporting to Excel (or making the export easier) is the only way forward? I'd be interested to hear if other institutions have a simpler approach to rules and ratios that might lend itself to a more automated approach.


Thanks,
Andy






-----Original Message-----
From: Talis Aspire Users [mailto:LIS-[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Michael Fake
Sent: 06 March 2013 09:45
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Review process

Dear Laura,

We're still in the process of implementing Aspire, so most of our thinking about the acquisitions process is theoretical at this stage - but in my view the review process as it currently stands is not efficient, and doesn't suit the way that we manage acquisitions at LSE. Reviewing a list item by item doesn't appear to save us any significant time over our existing paper-based review process - indeed in some ways its worse since at the moment review information is lost when a review is completed.

We have a very centralised acquisitions process at LSE, particularly for teaching materials, so our approach may not suit a lot of libraries, but at the moment we're looking at bypassing the Aspire acquisitions element entirely - we're intending to export the data from Aspire into a separate Access database, which we can then hook up to our LMS to check against current stocking levels - and by plugging in some basic purchasing ratio business rules we can generate lists of items to order. That should reduce manual processing to a minimum. It's quite a fiddly workaround, particularly the exporting process (currently this involves running three different exports from Aspire), but it's currently the only way we can see to leverage the power of the Aspire database to speed up acquisitioning.

Michael

Michael Fake

Teaching Support Services Manager

Library Services

London School of Economics & Political Science

T: +44 (0)20 7955 7946

E: [log in to unmask]


________________________________

From: Talis Aspire Users on behalf of Unwin, Laura J.
Sent: Tue 05/03/2013 4:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Review process



Hi,



We are currently looking at our review processes within Aspire and how to link them into the acquisitions and digitisation teams. Has anyone changed their acquisition process to incorporate Aspire and if so would you be prepared to share that process with us? We really want to get an idea how other Aspire users are using the review screen, we are finding some problems and some things are quite complicated to incorporate into our current Shelf Ready system, i.e. number of copies to order (each subject has different ratios) so any help or information sharing would be really appreciated either on or off list.



Thanks



Laura



Laura Unwin

Learning & Teaching Services Assistant

David Wilson Library

University of Leicester

PO Box 248

University Road

Leicester. LE1 9QD



T: +44(0)116 252 3101

F: +44(0) 116 252 2066

E:  [log in to unmask]

W: www.le.ac.uk/library



Winner of the 2012 THE Award for Outstanding Library Team



Elite Without Being Elitist



Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/uniofleicester




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