Supply Chain and Supply Chain Cases
This chapter introduces the concepts of Supply Chain and Supply Chain Management (SCM) to academic and research library professionals. It starts with definitions and essential characteristics, explained in the context of library mission, organization, processes, and core products and services. It then summarizes a brief history on how supply chain and its management have grown into a broadly recognized discipline and how it became a strategy for creating value for end users. Finally, this chapter provides two brainstorming use cases related to products that are similar to core library services. The goal of this chapter is to establish the argument that libraries need to adopt the Supply Chain idea as a discipline, a standard practice, and a foremost priority.