Ordering Materials for the Library

Each academic department is allocated a portion of the library's budget for acquiring library materials. Faculty in each department or program select materials based on the curricular needs. Ordering is coordinated by a faculty member in each department who acts as the Library Representative; check with your department for details on how ordering is coordinated in your department.

Orders can be submitted via email to liborders@knox.edu or they can be submitted on paper--publisher's flyers, printouts from Amazon or Choice Reviews Online, catalog pages, or simply typed out. Include your name and the department for which you are submitting the orders. For faster processing, also include the full bibliographic information and the price.

More Information About Ordering and Acquisitions

Checking on orders
Contact your librarian-liaison or Pat Glasnovich (x7783) in the library's acquisitions department.

Regular order reports
The following reports are sent out routinely:
Item Received: Any time an item you have ordered arrives, you are notified.
Monthly Allocation Reports: Your departmental representative is sent a report each month indicating how much of the department’s allocation has been spent so far and what is left to spend for the current fiscal year.
Monthly On Order Reports: Your departmental representative a receives a monthly report listing all the items currently on order, but not yet received, for your department.
Monthly Titles Received Reports: Your departmental representative also receives a monthly report listing the citations for all titles received for your department since the last report.

Reference books
Major reference books or sets are usually purchased using the library's reference allocation rather than the library's allocation for your department. These titles are normally chosen by the head of reference, Sharon Clayton, in consultation with the subject librarians and with faculty as needed. If you would like to recommend a reference title, please send the recommendation to your librarian liaison. Only major reference books come out of this allocation, that is,  multi-volume sets or titles that cover large subject areas.

Recommending titles outside your departmental area
If you know of a title the library should have, but for which it would not be appropriate to use your department's allocation, you can recommend it in by contacting someone in a department under whom it would more logically fall and asking them to consider ordering it. Or you could send a recommendation to the Library Director, Jeff Douglas (x7491, box #227).

Interdisciplinary titles
Sometimes with interdisciplinary titles departments will go in together on an order. If you have arranged such a purchase with other departments, just indicate the price split on the order when you send it in.

Guidelines for interdisciplinary departments and programs
The following departments and programs have smaller library allocations: Gender and Women's Studies, Religious Studies, Latin American Studies, Environmental Studies, and Black Studies. These allocations are reserved for truly interdisciplinary titles or titles that would not relate to a standard department. If you want to order a title that would come under one of these programs, please contact your librarian or a faculty member in that program.

Big ticket items
Some titles are too expensive for any one allocation. In these cases we can sometimes use a combination of funds to purchase an item. So, the cost may be split between the departmental allocation and reference, or between two departments and reference, or between the department and other general library funds. If you wish to order a title that is too expensive for your allocation, please contact your librarian liaison.