2010 ACRL-NEC: All For One and One For All!
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Subtitle: Consortial PDA and Other Collection Development Adventures of the CTW Library Consortium Speakers: Elizabeth Hansen, Connecticut College Patricia Tully, Wesleyan University Lorraine Huddy, CTW Consortium
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2010 ACRL-NEC: All For One and One For All!
- 1. All for One and One for All! Consortial PDA and Other Collection Development Adventures of the CTW Consortium ACRL-NEC Conference May 14, 2010
- 2. Presenters Lorraine Huddy, CTW Librarian for Collaborative Collection Projects Beth Hansen, Director, Information Services, Connecticut College, New London, CT Doris Kammradt, Head Librarian for Collections, Research and Instruction, Trinity College, Hartford, CT Pat Tully, University Librarian, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
- 3. CTW Consortium Trinity College Connecticut College Wesleyan University
- 4. CTW Mellon Proposal April 2007 "CTW is requesting a three-year grant from the Mellon Foundation to provide the resources necessary to undertake an in-depth analysis of the three existing collections and to move forward with a well developed plan for collaborative collection building, de-accessioning, and possible storage of duplicate titles. "
- 6. CD Policies
- 7. And then ... the crash! • 2008 economic downturn • Acquisitions budget cuts • Less emphasis on saving space or increasing titles purchased • More on maintaining access to resources
- 8. CTW's Collaborative Book Pilot Project • Built on failure of an earlier project • Lessons learned: o Keep the process simple o Avoid secondary workflows o Establish clear guidelines
- 9. The New Project • Started in late January 2009 • Purpose: Expand advanced study or research level titles within CTW • Set up a CTW fund of $25,000 for each library • Developed criteria for its use • Aided by transition to online selection
- 10. Criteria for use of CTW Fund • Unique copy at time of order • Anticipated need: Only 1 copy in CTW • Long-term value for all three schools • Substantial publications by academic publishers • Price at $85 or above • Advanced academic content level • Preference for English language titles • Part of circulating collection
- 11. Use of CTW Funds - Year 1 CCD Titles purchased with uniqueness levels Total Unique Duplicates Triplicates CC 64 52 11 1 TC 181 130 42 7 WU 247 210 31 6 CTW 492 392 84 14 % of Total 80.1% 17.1% 2.8%
- 12. Use of CTW Funds - Year 2 February – April 2010 Total Unique Duplicates Triplicates CC 102 99 3 0 TC 64 53 9 2 WU 83 81 2 0 CTW 249 233 14 2 % of Total 93.6% 5.6% 0.8%
- 13. Issues affecting desired outcomes Criteria: Unique title in CTW at time of order 26 of 98 titles (26.5%) now held in duplicate or triplicate were owned at the time of order But ...this represents only 5% of ALL CTW Fund titles purchased in Year 1 (26 of 492 titles)
- 14. Issues affecting desired outcomes Criteria: One CTW copy should be enough 20% of CTW Fund titles are now owned in duplicate or triplicate across CTW Criteria: Reserve CTW Funds for titles $85+ Of the 492 titles purchased in Year 1: • 31% (152) titles cost below $75 • 14% (68) titles cost below $45
- 15. Benefits of this Project • Augments our acquisitions budgets • Intentionally focuses upon increasing unique content • Encourages selectors to think and act consortially • Fits established workflows • Easy accounting and stats
- 16. CTW's Shared E-book Pilot Liaisons ask, “Why limit it to just print?” • Ease of sharing • Faster access • 24/7 access anytime, anywhere • Multiple users • Cost savings • Patron-driven purchases • Space needs • Workflow
- 17. Where's the Adventure? YBP Pilot = Successful Shared Purchasing Model vs. Patron-Driven Acquisitions Leads to… Skewed collections Irrelevant content Limited audience “Bananas” So why tamper with success?!
- 18. Patron -Driven Acquisitions The Old Model • "Just in Case" acquisitions model • Perceived need vs. actual need • Balance of resource and need • Ownership vs. access The New Model • "User Centered” acquisitions complements "Just in Case” • Patron use indicates need • Anticipates ILL and resource sharing alternatives • May or may not preclude purchase of print
- 19. A New Direction: CTW’s Expectations for PDA • PDA selections will complement our existing print collection development program • PDA will result in efficiencies for selection and acquisitions • A shared PDA e-book program will result in significant cost savings • PDA will reduce the physical handling of materials • User demand for e-books will continue to grow
- 20. Approval of the CCD E-book Pilot Mellon supports expansion of project into ebooks • Collaborative approach to collection development • Means for implementing & evaluating an alternative model of e-book acquisitions • Potential cost savings • Improved access and support of scholarship
- 21. And We're Off ... Evaluating and Selecting a Vendor Implementing the PDA Program Monitoring and Assessment Original photo from: Gravityx9 All rights reserved.
- 23. CTW's Evaluation Criteria ...the Details! CTW Ebook Demos Winter / Spring 2009
- 24. CTW’s Primary Objectives … and why we chose MyiLibrary / Coutts • Multi-user access to ALL titles • Perpetual access and ownership • Established relationship with publishers • Patron-Driven Acquisitions with detailed profiling • Print–on–Demand
- 25. Overview of MyiLibrary‘s PDA program • Books purchased on 2nd view/session • MARC URL opens description page (free) • Entire book accessible during first session • Print / download 10 pages at a time • Multi-user access = • 3-4 users at a time/title
- 26. Implementation of the PDA Program Collection Development: Getting PDA titles that "fit" Technical Services & Systems: Holdings >> Records >> Access Acquisitions: Invoices based on Usage
- 27. Getting titles that "fit" - Content Areas - Specific Publishers - Types of Materials - Price Limit
- 28. MiL’s De-Duplication Service • Option to remove titles owned in print from PDA record loads • CTW holdings sent to Coutts • PDA Titles pulled based on profile, then culled.
- 30. Monitoring Usage and Assessment Data so far: • Record loads • Usage: purchases vs. views Assessment: • Promises vs. Reality • Issues related to the Vendor, Interface and Pricing
- 31. Usage Statistics Jan 15 – Apr 28 PDA title records received: 3,280 ALL Titles Titles Purchased Titles Viewed Total Titles Accessed 153 62 92 Total Sessions 365 273 92 Avg Sessions / Title 2.4 4.4 1 Highest # Sessions 22 1 Total Pages 3,978 3,238 740 Avg Pgs / Session 11 12 8 Highest # Pages 73 99
- 32. Time Spent in Each Title Pages Viewed and # Sessions 1 page: 78 2 - 5 pgs: 122 6 - 10 pgs: 50 11 - 20 pgs: 48 21 - 99 pgs: 71* (*avg pgs / session = 35) *Indicative that acceptance of ebooks is increasing?
- 33. PDA Titles Purchased Titles purchased: 62 Total spent: $7,781.76 Average cost per title: $125.50 (Mean price = $147.02) Price Range: $9.85 to $250.00
- 34. PDA Titles Viewed Titles viewed once: 92 Total Cost: $0 Total Pages viewed: 740 Average: 8 pages / session Title viewed once with highest usage: Costa Rica: A Global Studies Handbook 99 pages viewed!
- 35. Assessment of PDA Pilot MiL's model vs. new options that become available MiL Platform/Interface • anticipating users’ needs and preferences • CTW user survey Pricing: was the promise a reality?
- 36. Consortial / e-book issues •Ownership/How to count in statistics? •Copyright and licensing •E-book devices, software
- 37. After the grant ... Ensuring faculty, administration support • The Sopranos problem • Ownership v. access • What standard of measurement?
- 38. Any Questions?
Editor's Notes
- Hi everyone, Thanks for coming! I’m Pat Tully, University Librarian at Wesleyan University. We represent the CTW Consortium, which consists of three liberal arts schools: Connecticut College, Trinity College and Wesleyan University. About three years ago, we embarked on a Mellon-funded project to explore new ways to share our collections and collection development processes. We are now three quarters of the way through the project, and, due to technological developments and financial crises we’ve gone in a somewhat different direction than we expected to in the beginning. In this presentation we'll talk a little about where we are and how we got there ...
- We are four of the people on the project committee, along with Dick Ross, College Librarian at Trinity, Lee Hisle, VP for Information Services and Librarian of the College at Connecticut College, and Andrew Klein, CD Coordinator at Wesleyan. Lorri Huddy's position is funded by the grant. As project manager, Lorri has compiled massive amounts of data, worked extensively with vendors, coordinated the project, and very diplomatically driven us to do what needed to be done to move forward. Beth Hansen coordinates collection development (among other things!) at Connecticut College. Doris Kammradt heads up collection development (again, among other things!) at Trinity College. And me, before I was named University Librarian, I coordinated collection development at Wesleyan. Which is why I’m on the committee.
- So first a few basics about CTW and the libraries that make it up. Connecticut College is in New London, Connecticut, on Long Island Sound. As of last year, there were 1,850 students enrolled at Conn. The library staff consists of 14.5 librarians and 9.5 support staff. Trinity College is in Hartford, Connecticut. As of last year, there were 2,255 student enrolled, of which 2,177 were undergraduates. The library staff consists of 19 librarians and 13 support staff. (Updated as per Doris) Wesleyan University is in Middletown, Connecticut, just south of Hartford. As of last year, there were about 3,000 students, of which almost 2,800 were undergraduates. The library staff consists of 15 librarians and 20 support staff. This year, the combined materials budget for all the libraries in CTW is $6.6 million (Not that we've combined them--yet!) The CTW Consortium was established in 1987. We originally got together to share the development and implementation costs of an online library catalog, and to share physical collections via a daily delivery service. In the years since we have worked on several collaborative projects, including a 2001 Mellon-funded information literacy grant.
- The original purpose of the project was to explore ways for the three of us to build complementary collections that would allow us to save materials money and shelf space, while continuing to meet the needs of our students and faculty. Mellon approved our proposal in 2007, and we started by hiring Lorri Huddy as the Librarian for the project. .
- We (or rather, Lorri) began by analyzing our collections using the WorldCat Collection Analysis tool. We used it to determine the amount of overlap among our holdings, and to compare our holdings with titles in Books For College Libraries/Outstanding Academic Titles, and with the holdings of peer institutions. For example, this slide shows one result of the analysis of our three collections. {Background: Focused on Book collections – Titles published since 1960 Current levels of Unique / Duplicate / Triplicate copies of the same title across the libraries We were gratified to find that the long-standing informal practice of many of our selectors, who routinely checked the holdings of the other libraries before ordering titles, had resulted in a fairly high percentage of unique titles. Could we do better if we formalized this?
- The next phase kicked off last summer with a day-long meeting of selectors from all three libraries, to determine each library's strengths and weaknesses by academic division. We then undertook to update or document each of our collection development policies by department, in order to come up with a coordinated consortial collection development policy. Don’t ask us how this went, because we were getting a little distracted by …
- … the economic downturn that started in the fall of 2008. As I’m sure all the rest of you did, each of us sustained budget and staff reductions as a result of the downturn. Our acquisitions budgets were particularly hard hit. So we began to rethink our objectives, and concentrate not on saving space or increasing the variety of our resources, but on eliminating unnecessary duplication of new titles, and so reducing the effect of budget cuts on our ability to provide resources to our students and faculty. Now I’ll turn it over to Lorri, to talk about how we proceeded.
- Collaboration within CTW on collection development had at least a 10 year history prior to the 2007 grant application. For the most part, this collaboration was rather informal, with the general goal of avoiding unnessary duplication. Early in 2006, we started a more structured approach with our primary vendor, YBP, in setting up a shared CTW profile within GOBI. This profile ran off a separate account and created an additional workflow for CTW selection. This proved to be more cumbersome than anticipated, and after about one year we dismantled the project. However, it provided us with some valuable insights that we built on for our next collaboration.
- The 2008 budget crunch at all three libraries shifted the goal of our collaboration from avoiding duplication to maintaining the depth of our shared collection. In other words, we were beginning intentionally to select for the consortium. This was supported by a special fund for each of the three libraries, that enhanced our ability to buy titles on behalf of the consortium. It also helped that all selectors began to review titles directly in GOBI and with the function of "Go-Between" could see immediately if a title had already been ordered for one of the other libraries.
- We also made sure that we spelled out clearly the criteria for using the CTW Fund. As for the first two points, we specified that if a second copy is needed, it is to be purchased from the individual library's allocations. The next few points speak to the anticipated long-term research value of the publication, because we do want to emphazise that jointly we strive to maintain the collection level that our faculty and students have come to expect. Finally, while we are not entirely excluding non-English titles, the focus for this particular project is on the most broadly accessible research publications, and obviously, they need to be circulating.
- So what does our purchase pattern look like after the first year? Collectively, we have purchased 392 titles that are unique to CTW which is about 80% of all purchases on the fund. For 84 titles (or 17%), a second copy was purchased by one of the libraries, and only 14 books (or 2.8%) are presented in CTW by 3 copies. For the first year, we considered this a pretty good outcome, given that the selectors were still getting used to the set of criteria; their new consortial selection role; and the fact that this new fund was available to them.
- The numbers for the first three months of this year (note: the first year covered February 2009 to January 2010) show an even greater level of uniqueness, up from 80 to now 93.6%. The uniquess level will still probably decrease slightly as some second copies are requested. But overall we believe this project is moving in the intended direction, in that it enhances the depth of our shared collection by increasing the number of unique titles.
- What were some of the glitches in setting this up? It took a while for everybody to understand that in order to use the CTW fund, the title had to be unique at the time of order. Also, sometimes the holdings in the catalog or the order history in Gobi may not have been checked, or there may have a been a time lag between selection and order placement. However, this occured only for 5% of the purchases, which for the first year seemed an accpetable error rate
- Secondly, and not unexpectedly, titles picked up from the CTW fund were found to be needed at one or the other school for their own collection, so a second copy was purchaed. We're OK with this, because it is hard to gage what might come in as a faculty request or just really fits the teaching or research direction at one of the schools. And finally, price point -- it took some reminders that we are not looking at the lower-cost titles for this project, but do want to focus on the kind of material that is at or above the established cost level.
- To sum up: We each have been able to stretch our acquisitions dollars by establishing the CTW fund; we have started to focus on the consortial collection and have been more intentional in buying for the consortium; and finally, the workflow for this project does not pose any problems in that it doesn't require any special steps, and it is easy to monitor.
- I'll be going over through details about our PDA program (the "nuts & bolts“ so to speak!): how we chose a vendor and why we chose Coutts / MyiLibrary a few unique steps that were required for our PDA set up What we've seen happening so far and how it relates to our expected outcomes.
- One of CTW’s primary objectives was having access to many publishers and titles via one platform >> this meant an ebook aggregator so we looked at these four vendors. An important Note: At the very start, PDA was NOT a primary objective. It took on greater significance as we became more familiar with it and realized its potential to achieve collaborative collective development objectives.
- CTW invited each vendor to present their ebook products & options. A list of questions was sent to them in advance -- these served as our evaluation criteria. Open EXCEL file NOTE: Demos took place in late 2008/early 2009 - so info needs updating NOTES: Questions in BLUE (related to primary objectives) Consortial Needs: Access to all titles by all libraries was an utmost concern PDA details: became more pertinent after deciding to try this option. Ebook vs. Print: Unless you ask, you may not find out about this! Some publishers produce two versions of their titles and the vendors rely upon publishers to be forthcoming about which titles are affected. (i.e.) Yale redacts all art images and photographs from ebooks. Technical: wanted to avoid propriety software (for users & IT’s sakes!) E-readers were really starting to make waves – wanted to know how pro-active vendors were being in regards to supporting alternative access methods. Retaining Access to Purchased titles – VERY important! Is covered by licensing and platform / access fee is required by all vendors Rights on use of Ebooks: Access Services not happy about ILL limitations (portions of books). Future possibility? ILL clearinghouse a la CISTI for temp access to e-titles. Discovery issues: wanted to be sure openURL linking to ebooks possible – GOOD MARC records a must . Print-on-Demand: just in case print copy ever needed -- possibly help with acceptance of ebooks? (Will have some copies of the spreadsheet at our roundtable this afternoon)
- MiL showed the greatest willingness to be flexible while working with the consortium despite the layer of complexity this added. As a result of choosing MiL, CTW has: access to a large book collection on one platform the assurance of long term access to purchases despite: (1) changes at the vendor -- or (2) a CTW decision to stop PDA or switch vendors Coutts’ other role as print book vendor played a factor. Said they would work on our behalf to influence publishers’ if and when needed Demonstrated the best understanding of libraries’ coll dev needs as proved by their profiling for PDA programs They also understood our “just in case” wants. Coutts’ parent company is Ingram > its Lightning Source POD service is available to us Lastly, Coutts / MiL seemed the most forward-thinking of the vendors They spoke about potential services they might provide or be involved with in the future. (i.e) (1) working with publishers to provide ILL services (2) providing users w/ option to order personal print copies (3) most recently – expanding PDA so it can include print
- Overview of how our PDA works: Titles purchased on 2nd view MARC URLs open free description page Links off description page (i.e. Table of Contents) open the book It’s when the book is actually opened that: a session starts and counts toward purchase of that title >> Absolutely NO limit on # of pages looked at during ANY session (vs. ebrary 5 pages = 5 views = purchase) Purchases are pre-approved / pre-moderated. CTW put a $250 price limit on PDA titles 10 pages at a time but multiple sets per session Up to 4 users at a time but no turnaways MiL monitors usage -- CTW to be notified if abuse suspected; -- access may be suspended until situation resolved >> Libraries should notify MiL when title put on reserve to alert them to the potential of higher than usual usage
- We chose MiL in early Nov 2009 - Our goal was to >> have everything in place before Jan break (~ 6 weeks.) It actually took ~ 10 weeks to get our initial record load + 2 weeks for the dust to settle (an unexpected hiccup!) We were fully in place by early Feb -- took 2x the time expected! Here’s a VERY simplistic outline of what was involved: >> Create the PDA profile >> Load MiL holdings >> Set -up accounting >> Get admin training on two systems: MiL and OASIS (Coutts’ GOBI) Setting up the PDA program required coordinating efforts among multiple library departments (in multiple libraries!) >> It was a process where all the individual steps were familiar, but the number and combination of steps required was a bit different Think about the process required when buying a group of print titles: profiling / selecting / cataloging / acquisitions Add some e-resources pieces: authentication & testing access Lastly - usage stats so acquisitions knows if the invoice is correct! Familiar – yet different! Next: a look at two specific steps that impact the PDA records we get: Profiling and De-Duplication
- One reason we chose Coutts was for their PDA profiling options. We wanted the PDA program to provide titles that the libraries would have bought IF budgets weren't a problem. We had already looked at curricula and research needs across the consortium >> and wanted to focus on overlapping content needs >> BUT didn’t want to be TOO stringent. This slide shows Subject Parameter options (BLUE = included) We can: (1) Include / exclude complete LC classifications Include / exclude LC sub-sections (i.e.) RA – Public Aspects of Med (3) Specify LC call number ranges (i.e.) Medicine: RC 321 - 571 As you can see, we chose both of the last two options. We also chose inter-disciplinary aspects so our Programs / Areas of Study would get titles that cross LC classifications. Non-Subject Parameters allow us to: -- Specify publishers: Univ presses and a list of academic publishers -- Focus on types of materials we thought most likely to be used & accepted in e-format (parts of books vs. cover-to-cover) (i.e) anthologies, books of essays & critiques, poetry & short stories -- Exclude other types normally not purchased (i.e) Textbooks, manuals, reprints, professional materials… -- Limit by price point (we chose $250) -- Limit to current titles (2008+) Our profile was complete, but before we could get a title list to review, another step was required…
- CTW decided to utilize Coutts/MiL’s de-duplication service for a couple of reasons: - All 3 libraries subscribe to ebrary’s Academic Complete Collection and we didn’t want to purchase these e-titles from MiL (yet.) - We also decided we weren't ready to re-purchase titles already held in print at each library (titles held in triplicate across the consortium) For our initial PDA load: We wanted as many unique titles as possible >> All titles owned in duplicate and triplicate were removed; >> so this load included only unique or titles held by one CTW library. -- subsequent loads will remove only titles held in triplicate. Our profile and holdings were now at Coutts – we were getting there! Once a title list was pulled / reviewed / approved, we’d get our first batch of records and be ready for business!! BUT.. You know what they say about the details?
- Recently a Wesleyan colleague reminded me how true that saying can be! As the primary person responsible for overlooking the PDA program and following up on problems – THIS is how I’ve felt some days! Some totally unexpected issues have come up such as: -- A record load that was accidently based upon Single user pricing -- MARC URLs that open different titles than listed in the records -- Usage of a title that can’t be found in MiL or OASIS (Coutts’ GOBI) It’s important to point out that this has been a learning experience not only for CTW – but for Coutts / MiL too! (and…to be honest, sometimes I’m the one behind the mask!) It’s the first time that Coutts has worked with a small consortium and treated its members as a single library for a PDA program. Most issues have been resolved quickly and some cannot be unique to this PDA program (i.e. those caused by publisher practices!) One recommendation: Assign someone as the primary person responsible for looking into and following-up on issues that arise. Because they will…especially at the beginning! Enough said, let’s look at some data…
- So let's see what's been happening with our PDA program so far ... and then talk about plans for assessing our pilot First a reminder: The data you’re about to see…. is for mid-Jan to the end of April 2010 (just 3 ½ months total) We’ve only just begun! … but are very excited to share our initial results
- Note that we’ve gotten 3,280 PDA records so far 153 titles means ~ 5% of our PDA titles were accessed The graph shows Usage for ALL titles; Then broken down by Purchases vs. Titles Viewed only Once As you can see, the chart clearly shows that Purchased titles are getting used over and over again >> Averaging between 4 to 5 x per titles – the number of sessions per title ranges from 2 to 22 Breakdown for Titles Purchased >> 24 titles: were viewed only twice >> 20 titles: viewed 3 or 4 times >> 14 titles: viewed 5 – 9 times >> 4 titles: viewed 10 – 22 times
- These statistics are for ALL Titles A Springer survey reported the ave. time per session = 7 min. MiL stats do not provide length of time / session >> But can pages views help us estimate length of time in the title? Interesting that # of sessions with 1 page vs. 21+ pages viewed are similar: 78 sessions: 1 page viewed 71 sessions: 21 - 99 pages No past usage stats for comparison’s purposes: – but found it encouraging to see that some users are viewing MANY pages during their sessions. Hopeful that this continues …could be proof that some students and faculty are transitioning to and accepting ebooks vs print more readily….
- Here’s some info about the titles we purchased April was CTW’s "best" month so far: 34 titles bought Previous months’ purchases: Jan – 7 Feb – 13 March – 8 Total: 62 Titles >> $7800 >> ave. price $125 The least and most expensive titles purchased: $9.85 Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (Oxford) $250.00 Heritage and Identity (Taylor & Francis) >> This was the only title that cost our maximum price 22 titles cost $10 - 100 33 titles cost $101 - 200 5 titles cost $201 - 220 ++++++++++++++++++ Complete Breakdown: $9.85 - $50: 9 $151 - $200: 17 $51 – 100: 13 $201 - $250: 6 $101 - $150: 16
- This is a great benefit of the PDA program: -- providing access to titles that "might" never get purchased -- we can’t accurately determine this, but… how many might have been requested via ILL? By tracking views vs. purchases over time, could libraries’ estimate potential savings from NOT needing to process ILL requests? (could it make fiscal sense to re-profile to get more PDA titles?) CTW has the option of reviewing titles viewed once >> could remove those they don’t want to “risk” buying Average pages viewed: 8 / session (obviously 99 pgs. is NOT the norm!) 22 titles : 1 page viewed 52 titles : 2 – 9 pages viewed 17 titles : 10 – 46 pages viewed
- Our PDA Pilot should last through Jan 2011 (if the $ holds out!) We’re starting to compile assessment related questions-- The Ebooks Market is changing rapidly: Will MiL’s program evolve? Is it leading the way or simply keeping up? Will publishers join the PDA playing field? (OUP getting inquiries) As we purchase more ebooks – user’s needs are an increasing concern: MOBILE DEVICES are a hotter topic now for CTW MiL’s tethered model (10 pgs/time) already outdated Awaiting a response to iPad (Safari is problematic for MiL) A CTW Survey about Ebooks could tell us: Which mobile devices are most common on our campuses? What are User Expectations for access to and use of ebooks? (Tools?) PRICING: Told: Publishers set prices; Ave. price 1.6x cost of print Actual: Ave price so far: 1.8x cost of hardcover; 2.3x cost of softcover “Cost of Print" never was clearly defined; Discovered it is typically based on HC even if SC available >>Most glaring example: CTW paid $220 vs. $26.95 (in SC) > 8x cost We have seen that Pricing practices vary widely: From publisher to publisher :: and even title to title by same publisher! Ex: OUP titles ~ 1.4x print :: OSO titles = 3x single user price Realize our publisher list mayimpact our actual average price paid. CTW is grappling with: What’s the added value for e-book vs print? How much more are we willing to pay for this added value? Given our budgets – need to stay focused on what’s sustainable and acceptable to the libraries... In closing: Pricing will continue to be carefully monitored: >> Fair pricing practices will be a primary reason to con’t beyond the pilot.
- There are some issues with building a consortial collection of e-books: If it is purchased consortially, how do we count it in statistical data that we provide to the Oberlin Group and ARL? In CTW, we’ve decided that each of us will count each consortial ebook we purchase as part of our collection. This is what we do with other e-resources we provide access to. Copyright and the resulting restrictions on access are another issue. Because of publisher and author concerns, there are now restrictions on how much of an e-book can be accessed or copied at any one time. This can make the e-book less easy to use than a print book. Or maybe it just seems that way to students and faculty who are used to the physical limitations of using print books, but who expect unfettered access to books in electronic form. As the courts, publishers and authors work through these issues, we expect fewer annoying restrictions on access. E-book devices are an issue now, but may become a non-issue in the future. A week or so ago, Google announced a new service -- Google Editions, which will allow readers to download texts onto a variety of devices. I suspect that other vendors and publishers will follow suit, and there will be no one device that takes over the academic e-book market.
- So what concerns may faculty and administrators have about consortial collection building and patron-driven acquisitions? Q: The most popular books are not the most scholarly--how to make sure that we pay only for books that advance the academic mission? A: Librarians develop a profile to determine what titles will be made available through PDA, so books that are completely out of scope are cannot be selected. (We do need to consider, though, expanding that scope so that our patrons can select specialized or other material that is useful for their study or research.) Q: The school is paying part of the cost of these ebooks, but does not own them. Why shouldn't we just purchase these ourselves? A: This concern is less common than it used to be, but we still hear it from time to time. Paying for access allows us to focus our spending on providing access to materials that our patrons actually use. Electronic purchase-on-demand makes it possible to move to a just-in-time access model that is more cost effective. Q: If title and volume counts no longer are the valid measure of a library’s strength, what is? A: Use--circulation statistics, electronic usage stats, ILL borrowing and lending—how our patrons use resources the library pays for will become the measure.