Rebuilding the Plane While Flying: Library/Vendor Strategies for Approval Plan Revision (in a DDA World)

Library approval plans remain a major means of both codifying a library’s collection development program and providing an operational and procedural tool for acquisitions of library materials. This paper summarizes the arduous but ultimately worthwhile and satisfying project that Loyola Marymount University and YBP Library Services undertook in a yearlong approval profile review project. It describes how the library and the approval plan vendor strategized and collaborated to involve over 20 subject liaisons with varying levels of collection development experience and the support infrastructure needed to get liaisons up to speed on their roles in the project. It also explains the communications and collaboration tools we used to document a process with myriad details to track. Both the library and vendor perspectives on how to effectively structure and implement approval plan revisions for print and electronic books are included. Underlying this whole project was the belief that the approval plan (and intentional collection building) still has an important place in libraries.