A Least Cost Searching Sequence

Abstract

IN EVALUATING the procedures of the acquisitions department of the Pennsylvania State University library system, the cost of searching to order a book was found to be $.73. In addition, an order form had a rather high in-process time. An analysis of the flow of order forms through the department showed that a bottleneck was occurring with the searching procedure. As a result of this many order forms were being marked rush, and routine items were faced with an even higher in-process time. The library was faced with adding searchers or with accepting the fact that there would almost always be a backlog of unprocessed orders. The latter would result in a high in-process flow time thus reducing service to patrons and requiring that needed course material be ordered well in advance of the time when it was actually needed. The technical services librarian, the catalog librarian, an industrial engineer, and the librarian in charge of library systems research met and compared the amount of searching needed to identify adequately a publtcation to be purchased with the amount of searching needed for complete bibliographic information. At the time, it was decided that the library would adopt for a trial period an adequate information philosophy. The possibility that duplicate copies would occasionally be received was considered together with the increased probability of obtaining the wrong books. However, the fact that searching time would be considerably reduced thus increasing the number of possible searches in a given period of time was assumed to outweigh Mr. Lazorick is Industrial Engineer, and Mr. Minder is Engineering Librarian, in Pennsylvania State University.