Faced with these economic realities, the acquisitions unit at Southern Illinois University's Morris Library has sought alternative schemas to save money. One decision was to consider purchasing materials from secondary and used-book sources. For FY09, a database was constructed of purchases to track how much money was saved buying from these resources versus buying from commercial vendors.The authors then tracked how often the preservation unit within the library was consulted to determine whether the materials were in acceptable condition and/or could be reasonably repaired. From this tracking, we hoped to determine and evaluate the trade-offs between the money saved and the additional burden placed on Preservation resulting from this approach to purchasing.

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