Confirm library distribution routes
Verify GOBI availability for academic or professional books
For scholarly and professional titles, confirm that the book appears in GOBI Library Solutions, the acquisition platform academic libraries use, before approaching academic librarians.
Authors often hire help with this: metadata or distribution, library or cataloging.
Why it matters
Academic libraries buy through GOBI in a way that public libraries do not buy through any single platform, and approval plans purchase without anyone requesting the book. For a scholarly title, presence and correct profiling in GOBI can matter more than any review. For a general title, it does not matter at all.
Your part
- What you do
- Verify. Someone else may do it. Inspect the result yourself.
- Who normally owns it
- Publisher and Author and Distributor. Publisher, distributor, or vendor feed supplies; author verifies
- When
- Before academic library outreach begins (Confirm library distribution routes: six to three months before publication, before you ask any library to buy)Checked September 13, 2026 (opens in a new tab)
Your part changes with your publishing route.
How to do it
The full walkthrough
GOBI Library Solutions, operated by EBSCO, is the platform through which many academic libraries select and order books. Subject librarians see new titles there, with profiling data that matches books to their collection policies, and approval plans can buy titles automatically when they fit. If an academic or professional book is not in GOBI, most academic libraries will not encounter it in the normal course of acquisitions.
Titles reach GOBI through publisher and distributor data feeds, not through author action. Verification means asking the publisher or distributor whether the title is supplied to GOBI, and, ideally, asking an academic librarian to look it up. Authors cannot search GOBI directly.
For an author with a university press or scholarly publisher, the title is almost certainly in GOBI; confirm anyway and ask whether it carries the subject profiling that puts it in front of the right selectors. For a trade-published author whose book has academic relevance, ask whether the publisher's feed reaches GOBI; not all do. For a hybrid or self-published author, be honest with yourself: academic library acquisition is built around publisher feeds, and independent titles reach GOBI rarely and only through a distributor that supplies it. Ask, and if the answer is no, put your effort into direct contact with subject librarians who can order through other channels.
This item applies only to books with a genuine academic or professional audience.
Common mistakes
- Assuming a trade publisher's feed reaches GOBI.
- Skipping the check because the book 'is on Amazon'.
- Expecting to add a self-published title to GOBI directly.
- Pitching academic librarians before confirming they can order the book through their normal channel.
Identifiers for Verify GOBI availability for academic or professional books
Set a status on any record and it joins this step. All book identifiers.
| My status | Identifier | Why this matters | Yours |
|---|---|---|---|
| GOBI Library Solutions The platform academic libraries use to select and order print books and ebooks, run by EBSCO. | This matters for scholarly, professional, and course-adoptable books, and for most trade fiction it does not, so you can stop here if your book is the second kind. For a book that does fit, being missing from the platform, or profiled under the wrong subject, is easy for academic libraries to overlook, because many of their selections come through it. Authors don't get accounts, so on every route the move is normally to ask rather than to act: a traditionally published academic author normally finds the publisher has this covered, while a hybrid or self-published author has to raise it with whoever handles distribution and may be told the book won't appear. Get a clear answer on whether the book is listed and whether library ebook licenses are available there. | Nothing to record |
What done looks like
- Confirmation from the publisher or distributor that the title is supplied to GOBI, with the date.
- Subject profiling appropriate to the book's field, so it reaches the right selectors and approval plans.
- An academic librarian has looked the title up and confirmed it is orderable.
- The check done before any academic library outreach.
Evidence. Done means someone says the work happened. Verified means you checked the confirmation, link, or public record yourself.
Ask your publisher
Copy this into an email. Replace the bracketed parts with your details.
Sources and last checked
- Official source
- Official source (opens in a new tab)
- Last checked
- September 13, 2026
- How confident we are
- Verified
Rules and deadlines change. We last checked this information on September 13, 2026. If you see something that needs updating, please tell us.