Acquisitions Functionality

Improving Library Workflow

With the new  KeyLinks smart acquisition engine, it’s easy to keep on top of resource requirements and specify your own institutional parameters for purchasing. All new items added to reading lists are visible at a glance, and KeyLinks will recommend any additional copies you should consider purchasing, based on fully configurable rules you set in the system.

Alongside these purchasing suggestions, you can view useful information like unit dates and reading priorities, so your library can make quick, informed purchasing decisions to deliver the right resources at the right time for your students.

We’re committed to continuous improvement and have consulted with librarians to inform future enhancements to KeyLinks.

Purchasing ratio

Purchasing ratios allow you to set the number of items you would normally purchase based on student numbers and reading priority tags. These reading priority tags can be applied to the whole institution but can be modified for departments or all the way down to a single list if needed. This means you can, for example, specify different ratios for a business school and a nursing school. You can add as many ratios as needed – our new spreadsheet upload feature allows you to update student numbers quickly and easily.

Example showing title in Acquisitions

KeyLinks now includes integrations to popular library suppliers, enabling you to check pricing from within the Acquisitions screen. You can then go ahead and follow your normal library workflows to order titles. You can, if preferred, export all the details of the resources from KeyLinks in a formatted Excel file.

KeyLinks Benefits
  • Control over acquisitions is informed and firmly in the hands of the library
  • Variable parameters per faculty, degree programme and even course mean purchasing decisions can be made quickly
  • Resources are available when needed by the students
  • KeyLinks acquisitions development is led by librarians

We will continue our acquisitions improvement programme with regular monthly releases and are due to complete enhancements by spring 2022.