With many years of experience serving academic, public and government libraries with foreign language materials, we recognize the importance of establishing precise, yet flexible parameters to ensure the best quality material and service.
To establish an approval plan with East View, libraries complete a profile containing general parameters (country, language, formats of publications, special instructions, etc.) and subject parameters. To receive an electronic or hard copy of the profile, please contact our customer service department at [email protected] or call us toll free at (800) 477-1005. International clients can call East View at +1-952-252-1201.
After receiving a library’s profile, East View’s approval plan account managers contact each client immediately to introduce themselves, verify profile receipt and to request any necessary clarifications. We strive to maintain an ongoing dialogue as we provide your library with the most relevant, timely approval plan materials.
Librarians can choose from the following types of approval plans:
The geographic coverage of East View’s approval plans can be tailored to cover specific countries, regions, cities or ethnic groups, depending on client needs. Countries we cover:
| Europe: | Asia: | Countries formerly part of the Soviet Union: |
| Albania | China | Armenia |
| Bosnia & Herzegovina | Hong Kong | Azerbaijan |
| Bulgaria | Japan | Belarus |
| Croatia | Mongolia | Estonia |
| Czech Republic | South Korea | Georgia |
| Finland | Taiwan | Kazakhstan |
| Greece | Vietnam | Kyrgyzstan |
| Hungary | Latvia | |
| Kosovo | Lithuania | |
| Montenegro | Moldova | |
| North Macedonia | Russia | |
| Poland | Tajikistan | |
| Romania | Turkmenistan | |
| Serbia | Ukraine | |
| Slovakia | Uzbekistan | |
| Slovenia | ||
| Turkey | ||
Language
East View provides books in over 60 languages. Approval plans can be tailored to geography only or geography plus language—so you can request all books from Russia on a certain topic regardless of language, or books only in Russian language published in Russia on a particular subject.
East View offers a wide range of coverage options in geographic, subject and format areas. Our approval plans are highly flexible and can be as wide reaching—or as focused—as desired. The foundation of East View’s supply network is our unparalleled knowledge of national bibliographies, scholarly reviews and publishing houses. East View’s seasoned book selectors are highly trained librarians, subject specialists and book buyers, with years of collective experience in the book trade.
Book-in-Hand
All approval plan selections are reviewed in-hand by bibliographers trained on each individual library’s profile before the books are shipped to the library. Their years of book selection experience, combined with unparalleled customer support, ensure precision, flexibility and quality. The book-in-hand method ensures consistently low return rates, a testament to East View’s accuracy and quality in selections made on approval.
Subject Coverage
Approval plan customers have a range of subject areas to choose from, which include virtually any subject area. East View uses a modified version of the Library of Congress system of classification to designate subject areas. In addition to East View’s general approval plan profiles, we also supply specialized approval plan materials that may fall outside these general parameters depending on customer needs.
Although monographs typically constitute the bulk of an approval plan, East View customers have the option of receiving a variety of materials in addition to print books, including:
Book slips come with all approval items, containing all relevant bibliographic information, including title, author, ISBN, series, volume, year of publication and number of pages. Each slip also contains key product information to help libraries keep track of shipments and orders, including price, invoice date and purchase order number.
East View offers brief MARC records in RDA free of charge for approval plan customers. Bibliographic records are supplied weekly via email or ftp and may contain embedded order numbers, fund and location codes and invoice data. East View’s technicians are happy to work with you and/or your library’s information management staff to determine specific technical guidelines and requirements.
Approval plan customers are welcome to place firm orders to supplement their approval plan collection. Your approval plan representative will be happy to provide you with customized suggestions and/or conduct specialized searches.
On request, East View will search your library’s OPAC prior to shipping approval plan materials to prevent duplication. This service is provided free of charge to approval plan clients. In addition, East View’s book database automatically notifies staff of all duplicate orders in order to prevent against unintended duplication.
East View assigns to each library an approval plan account manager who is familiar with the unique profile and requirements of each client and whose primary responsibility is to ensure delivery of an unmatched level of service. Approval plan account managers collaborate with each library to create and revise profiles, respond to requests, solve problems, analyze returns and monitor technical services such as MARC records. Approval plan libraries can quickly make revisions to their profiles by contacting their representative via telephone, email or fax. Our customer service staff responds promptly and accurately to each library request.
Customer service representatives are based in the United States, Russia, Ukraine and Germany, which provides almost 24/7 support to our clients. East View relies heavily on library feedback, particularly during the first several months of an approval plan. It is important that we maintain a constant channel of communication as we work to refine our understanding of your library’s dynamic collection needs. We ask clients to carefully review materials during this time and to notify us of any profile adjustments in a continuing effort to improve performance.
East View’s approval plan profile allows librarians to indicate the annual budget and any book price limits. There is no minimum or maximum budgetary amount for approval plans. East View understands that periodic budgetary revisions may be needed as circumstances and library financial priorities shift. Given the lag time involved in international book selection and shipping, we ask that you notify us in writing of any budgetary changes as soon as possible so that we may best serve you.