Action for Libraries

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ACTION FOR LIBRARIES
BCR NETWORK NEWS .
. Bibliographical Center forResearch'.~""~,NO 6,June1995
. '. '. / .... '>(.(." .. " . . • ISSN: 0363-0'250
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.' CO.ROM Group Purchase Resoun.~i·~g J \.\ \ \ 1 0 muiat~dduring January and the first part of February
Success for Libraries and for BCR:, and t Ij. consolidated into orders to BCR vendors.
By lames Speed Heminger " 0 .' !ze~'by the Bibliographical Center for Re:.earch
n behalf of librarieS and media centers, this group pur­BCR's
MicroSystems & Services department com~p"ile::;t;;e:;:::==:=::;"" chase enabled libraries to benefit from some of the low- '
its second CD-ROM group purchase April 21. It was e~t prices ever on more than 155 popular CD-ROM
such a success. we are looking forward to offering the titles. The prices offered in the original 'title list were
group purchase to you 'twice a year from now on. ceiling prices. BCR guarapteed that prices would not be
Look for announcemenis and a new title list on Septerti- higher than those listed, but that theymight very well
ber 15. If you want.to participate" pleaSe call or fax be reduced depending on the aggregate volume ordered
LiuraChittivej to mike sure you're on' the m~iling list, throughout the region. BCR was able to provide these·
. (800) 397~1552 or faX (303) 751-9787. low prices by:
. One hundred and sevente,en organizations in ;UI six of
BCR's member states participated in the purchase,
along with two libraries in South Dakota and aIle in:·
Washington stat~, Participantsr.mged from a small
rural elementary school to a large urban school district
with '84 libraries and media centers. (We don't know
how many libraries and media cente,rs were actually
, served because many of the orders came directly from
parent org~nizati~~s.)
When compiled, the group purchase consisted of 235
different editions of 155 of the most popular CD-ROM
titles~sedin schools 'and public libraries, Orders to~ ,
taled $88,534 after discounts were applied. BCR
shipped particip~ting libraries a total of 1,881 pounds of,
materials and more than 2,157 items.
The process s,tarted with announcementsin the Novem. ,
ber and December issues of Action For, Libraries. These
'. were followed by a mailing to individual libraries of the
CD-ROM title list wiihprices·from.40 percent to 60 ,
percent below retail. Orders Jrom libraries were acc~-
• Acquiring volume ills counts in anticipation of the
large number of copies ordered. In fact, enough or- .
ders came in that BCR was able to obtain even
deeper discounts than anticipated. These were
passed along to the orderin:g libraries in the form'
of a 4.3 percent discount in addition' to the original
discounted prices. .'
• Reducing shippin:g costs by batching shipments.
• Reducing overhead by simplifying billing proce-
. dures. .,
• Having established good, long-standing relation-ships
with suppliers.
To create the title liSt; BCR consulted a number of '
sources with tlie obj~ctive of foc1!sing on the best and
most popular titles that might be of use in libraries and
media centers. The list's foundation was a ranked list­ing
of the 250 most popular titles (based on copies s.old)
· from a major distributor: After weeding out adult titles
· and games and adding in a number of publishers the dis­,
tributor does not carry, BCR consulted other "Hit Pa-rade"
lists to r~fine the selections ..
· C~ntinued on page 2
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