From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2013 02:23:44 +0000

>On January 22nd I received the following set of guidelines from Baker
>& Taylor/YBP concerning the presentation of our titles to our B&T/YBP
>buyers. This is information they are now expecting publishers to
>provide. I'm not quite sure what they thought our motivation would be
>to provide this information, but they have asked.

I can clear up this great mystery for you.

YBP, like you, is interested in selling your books to libraries. This is
why the heading above the criteria list says "Content/Format that
significantly affect sales through YBP." (Note the key word "sales.")
Libraries, for their part, are trying to buy those books that will best
support the research and learning that take place on their campuses, and
to avoid buying those books that will not. As someone who spent several
years matching academic books to libraries' expressed needs and helping
libraries adjust their approval profiles in order to maximize the
profiles' fit to mission, and who has subsequently spent many years as a
library collection development officer, I can tell you that a) libraries
often wish to exclude particular classes of book (such as unrevised
dissertations and periodical anthologies) from approval plan coverage, and
b) vendors sometimes struggle to tell whether a particular book fits in
one or more of those classes -- sometimes because publishers deliberately
disguise the fact, but more often because every book is somewhat unique.

If a publisher provides vendors with more information (such as that
requested by YBP) about the books it wishes the vendor to sell on its
behalf, then hopefully more books will be sold. This is why vendors hope
publishers will feel motivated to provide it.

Rick Anderson
Interim Dean, J. Willard Marriott Library
University of Utah
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