(contributed by Don McMorris)

As many libraries were small, most would order through a central system account and the consortium headquarters would receive.

Create a purchase order. Add Purchase Order Line Items by locating a bibliographic record (if there isn't one, an e-mail is sent to staff to request a new record). Release the purchase order, and submit it to vendor via EDI. When records are released, new item/holding records are created.

Supplier would box and ship items to consortium HQ. Staff would sort items onto book trucks by PO number, and verify contents on packing slips. Other staff would then take this book truck, receive the item on the purchase order, stamp and label the item, box the items up, and send them (via courier) to the library that ordered them.

Staff gets the items in the delivery. They pull up the Purchase Order, and link from the line item to the item record. They will apply a barcode to the book, and attach the barcode to the item record. The item would then be checked in (in terms of circulation) to trap any hold requests and to automatically move the status from "in-process" to "in" (or "held", "transferred", or other applicable status). The item would then be shelved.

Throughout the process, the EDI will handle some functions automatically. The order is generally placed through EDI (although it's in the library's name, the SAN is for the system so it's received at the HQ). When the vendor issues an invoice via EDI, the item will be changed from "On-Order" to "In-Process" (this may be configurable, but I'm not sure).