Charleston Library Conference 2015 Poster Session

Shelf-ready processing of print materials is a commonly available service from library book vendors, and many libraries outsource these services in order to help save staff time and costs, and to expedite the process. However, in the age where print monographs are increasingly replaced with e-books, do these services still make fiscal sense? In the Spring of 2015, the Libraries were looking to expand shelf-ready services to a second vendor, but before doing so opted to do a feasibility study to see if shelf-ready services were still needed and economical. This paper presents the findings of a two month study done at the Texas Woman’s University Libraries’ on the Libraries’ outsourced and in-house cataloging workflows. The study examined the amount of time it took to receive the materials after ordering, the various costs involved: shelf-ready fees and internal staff costs, as well as the numbers of print materials being purchased over the past three fiscal years.