[LIBRARYDIR] Using GOBI?

[Tammy Siebenberg]

Hi, Tim,

YVC used to use Baker & Taylor and mourned when they stopped supporting academic libraries. At that time we moved to GOBI but found it very confusing so we switched to Midwest Library Services. After a couple of years with Midwest we have switched back to GOBI (though I'll miss the chocolates Midwest sent every Christmas:)). The main reason for leaving Midwest is that you don't find out the actual discounted price of a book and its shipping costs until it is received.  This made my end-of-year budgeting difficult. There was also very little information in Midwest about a given title. With GOBI the discounted price is visible at the time of order, we can see the intended audience or type of book (e.g., academic v. popular v. textbook) and, for an extra cost, we can view book reviews from several sources. We pay extra to use the folders feature of GOBI so we can each build collections and keep track of who is ordering what.  This is particularly important when handling book orders for our Grandview campus library.

We haven't used GOBI to order eBooks yet but are set up to do so.  For Gale Virtual Reference Library GOBI says we will get the same sale price as Gale offers directly. However, our Gale rep said some of the time limited deals are only available from them directly.

We also order some books from Amazon but haven't wanted to use them exclusively at this time, primarily because I am the only one who can place orders from Amazon.

Tammy

Tammy R. Siebenberg, MLIS
Director - Library & Media Services
Yakima Valley College<http://www.yvcc.edu/>
Yakima, WA  98902
509.574.4984

From: LIBRARYDIR [mailto:librarydir-bounces at lists.ctc.edu] On Behalf Of Fuhrman, Tim
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2018 2:14 PM
To: WACTC Library Directors <librarydir at lists.ctc.edu>
Subject: [LIBRARYDIR] Using GOBI?

Curious as to how many folks are using GOBI.

In the "bad ol' days" we stopped using vendors for book purchases in favor of Amazon.  Things are better now but we got use to paying pennies on the dollar for materials that we get at or near new quality so I don't see us utilizing that aspect of GOBI.
About the only reason I can see us using it for purchasing/selecting ebooks.
If your library uses it do you find it worthwhile?

Do you use it as a standalone or do you have it integrated with Alma? We don't currently use Alma to manage budget lines or purchasing.  Would that have to change to make the integration worthwhile?

Thanks for the input and advice!

Happy summer,
Tim

______________________________________________________________
[cid:image002.jpg at 01D288FB.64E12050]

Tim Fuhrman
Director of Library Resources
& eLearning
Big Bend Community College
timf at bigbend.edu<mailto:timf at bigbend.edu>

509.793.2350
877.745.1212
www.bigbend.edu<http://www.bigbend.edu/>

Big Bend Community College * 7662 Chanute Street NE * Moses Lake, WA 98837-3299



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