Evaluation of the TALON Cooperative Acquisitions Program for monographs

The TALON Cooperative Acquisitions Program for monographs (TALON/CAP) was implemented in 1979 by eleven resource libraries in the South Central Regional Medical Library Program. Each participating library acquired books from selected publishers within a profile covering subject and format. The program was evaluated by comparing interlibrary loan requests, surveying participants, and analyzing cataloging records. The results were that ten of the eleven libraries significantly increased their coverage of assigned publishers, and that academic medical libraries are not all buying the same books, even from major medical publishers. The fifty-six publishers in the program accounted for 60% to 83% of the titles with 1977-80 imprints held by participating libraries. The computer-generated collection analysis reports provide a baseline for future collection management studies.