The Acquisitions Department is charged with the responsibility on a University-wide basis for ordering and receiving for the U of M Libraries all library materials other than items designated as periodicals. The following materials are not within the department’s purview: (1) supplies or equipment, and (2) periodicals. Requests for single payments exceeding twenty thousand dollars must be approved by the Provost (see U of M policy 1:2D:03:11) and will be routed through the Dean of Libraries.

The department handles initial fund accounting and maintains the many files, e.g., purchase order, and vendor files.

The department engages in extensive pre-order bibliographic searching to assure that the material requested is not needlessly duplicated.  Every reasonable effort is made to determine that the material is indeed available and at the price specified.  Further, the staff members check both on-line and printed sources to find out if cataloging copy is available.  In the searching process the department indicates the form of all name headings which have been previously used in U of M’s library catalogs.

Further, the department is responsible for accepting, accounting for, screening, evaluating, and processing all non-serial material which is donated to all departments of the U of M Libraries except Special Collections and the branch libraries/locations.

This page was last reviewed 10/19/2010
Please send questions/comments/suggestions to
Kevin Merriman, Head of Collection Management