PURCHASING: THE LIBRARIAN AS LONER

Appropriately, perhaps, the literature of library acquisitions is largely devoted to topics such as records management, vendor evaluation, selection sources, fugitive materials, budgeting, etc., rather than to the accounting aspects of acquisitions work. In core librarianship textbooks the same pattern applies, a small minority only addressing themselves to purchasing procedures in any detail. This paper attempts to reconsider the applicability of centralized and standardized purchasing procedures such as prevail in large‐scale public or commercial organisations for the purposes of library acquisitions, and offers some comment on the potential impact of automation in this context.