My initial gut reaction is purchase one ISBN and re-use it. Many map publishers do that - use the same ISBN for updated or revised versions of the same map. But, that's only part of the problem I imagine.
I forwarded your request to my acquisitions people. They're better able to advise you on these questions. The tax-exempt issues often creates problems for us (some Etsy sellers won't process sales for tax exempt institutions), or how credit cards can be used.
The status of this is often a moving target, changing with new systems, new staff, rule changes.
I suggest other librarians ask their purchasing departments to respond to this for Nat and NACIS. Nat, if NACIS is so inclined you could contact those libraries that have purchased the atlas in the past and ask them to answer these questions.
Just my quick thoughts.
Angie
This is an open question from the editorial team at the Atlas of Design (http://atlasofdesign.org).
We love to sell our volume to libraries, and we do, but maybe not as many as we'd like. What would make it simpler for librarians to buy it? A couple possibilities have come up:
- We do not sell through wholesalers, only direct (keeps price down), so we've never had an ISBN. Does this make sales to libraries more difficult? For that matter, does buying directly from us (an unregistered vendor) make this harder?
- Our web portal does not easily handle tax-exempt web sales, so we have a kluge-y workaround where a library sends us the tax-exemption forms, and we phone them back and the give us a credit card over the phone while we type in the info on our phone on our
sales portal's phone app as if it's an in-person sale, then go into the desktop version and enter the shipping address. This lets us elide over automatic sales tax calculations.
Any suggestions you have are welcome.
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Nat Case
INCase, LLC
Minneapolis, MN USA
612-702-1333