This document discusses e-book strategies for libraries. It provides an overview of transitions to digital formats, research on user attitudes towards e-books, and strategies libraries can take including purchasing big deal e-book collections, demand-driven acquisition pilots, and integrating e-books into library catalogs. It summarizes findings from pilots with ebrary and purchasing the most used titles. It concludes with next steps such as evaluating different purchasing models and making e-books more accessible and usable.

1. E-book Strategies for Libraries
Aaron K. Shrimplin
Miami University Libraries

2. http://xkcd.com/750/
By Randall Monroe

3. Overview
 Background
 Transitions into the Digital
 Campus Life & E-books
 Where do we go from here?
 Layering Tools Strategically
 Findings from the Frontlines
 Next Steps
Q&A

4. Background

5. It’s Finals Week at the Libraries

6. Transitions into the Digital

7. Campus Life & E-books
◦ Book Lovers (34%) have an inherent affinity for
the print form
◦ Technophiles (23%) are strongly interested in
the possibilities of new technology as regards the
book
◦ Pragmatists (17%) are the most neutral of the
four, as they are most interest in content and see
pros and cons of both formats
◦ Printers (26%) prefer print books but are
distinguished from Book Lovers in that they have
specific difficulties with the usability of e-books

8. Research Citations
1. Aaron Shrimplin, Andy Revelle, Susan
Hurst, and Kevin Messner, “Contradictions
and Consensus – Clusters of Opinions on
E-books,” College & Research Libraries
72, no. 2 (2011): 181-190.
2. Andy Revelle, Kevin Messner, Susan
Hurst, and Aaron Shrimplin, “Book Lovers,
Technophiles, Pragmatists, and Printers:
The social and demographic structure of
user attitudes toward ebooks.” College &
Research Libraries (forthcoming).

9. Where Do We Go From Here?

10. Layering Tools Strategically
By AJ Cann
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajc1/4663140532/

11. Findings From the Frontlines
 Consortial “Big Deal” E-book
Collections
 ebrary & YBP PDA pilot
 EBSCO E-books
 E-books in Gobi

12. The Big Deal Approach
 Springer
 Oxford University Press
 Wiley (forthcoming)

14. Title Use: 2008-2010, n=2529

15. Pareto Rules!

16. Long Tail
 54.5% of used titles had 3 uses or less
(318/582)
 And yet they constitute only 6.2% of
the total downloads (7,963)

17. A Few High Use Titles Dominate
 Algorithms and Data Structures
 2,264 downloads or 28.4% of the total
downloads over three years

18. E-journal Downloads

19. Inflationary Effect on E-books

20. Number of Downloads by Book Type

22. Number of Titles Used By Subject Area

23. Value of the Big Deal
 Our price tag to OhioLINK is a good value and
becomes a better value overtime with additional
usage
 Cost per download also seems to be a good
value when compared with others (e.g. Elsevier
study of ScienceDirect e-books which
determined cost per use is $5.10 per chapter)
 Having the choice to select only a subset of
subjects might be useful
 80/20 -- 116 titles @ $100.00 and long tail -- 318
titles with 494 downloads @ $6 per download =
$14,500
 Predictive analytics capabilities & pay for the
amount of need

24. ebrary & YBP PDA Pilot

25. PDA Overview
 More than 16,000 un-purchased e-books
records in our catalog
 1st batch loaded into our catalog on Sept.
2010. 2nd batch loaded in Feb. 2011.
 Jan. 2012, ebrary/YBP integrated profile
◦ Ebrary Auto-DDA in GOBI
 “alt-ed ebrary probable auto DDA (date)” OR “alt-ed
ebrary auto DDA record sent (date)”
◦ YBP is cross-checking & blocking DDA if we
purchase in print before the e-book becomes
available
 Budget: $100,000

26. PDA Model
 Purchase triggers
◦ 10 minutes of use
◦ 10 page turns (excluding TOC and Index)
◦ a print or a copy
 Single-User access
 Downloading e-books using Adobe
Digital Editions

27. PDA Goals
 Broaden the collection
◦ more titles
◦ more publishers
◦ more subjects
 Purchase on demand
◦ pay at point of need
◦ pay for amount of need
 Increasing purchasing efficiency
◦ 0 uses / $2,284,532

28. MUL ebrary Data – High Level
 September 2010 – April 2012
◦ 983 titles triggered for purchase
◦ $78,972.00
◦ $80.34 cost per title

29. Month Cost ($) Books Average Cost
Purchased ($)
Sept 2010 723 10 72.30
Oct 2010 1561 19 82.16
Nov 2010 4842 53 91.36
Dec 2010 3013 36 83.69
Jan 2011 3218 36 83.69
Feb 2011 4673 60 77.88
Mar 2011 6805 93 73.17
April 2011 4968 65 76.43
May 2011 3474 38 91.42
June 2011 2443 35 69.80
July 2011 2225 26 85.68
Aug 2011 2631 37 71.11
Sept 2011 4698 59 79.63
Oct 2011 4340 62 70.00
Average 3,543.96 45 $80.84

30. Publishers purchased on PDA
sorted by titles purchased
Publisher Titles Total Views Average Views
purchased per Publisher
John Wiley & Sons 217 23,510 108.4
Taylor & Francis 99 8,800 88.9
McGraw-Hill 43 10,330 240.2
Elsevier Inc. 39 4,618 118.4
Cambridge University Press 29 2,914 100.5
Ashgate Publishing Limited 21 2,149 102.3
University of Chicago Press 19 1,460 76.8
Palgrave MacMillan (UK) 17 1,302 76.6
World Trade Press 14 1,460 104.3
Brill Academic Publishers 11 562 51.1

31. Top 10 Subject Areas Purchased
on PDA
Primary BISAC Category PDA titles Percentage of
purchased purchased titles
Business & Economics 85 13.4%
Social Science 59 9.3%
Computers 48 7.5%
Political Science 42 6.6%
Education 38 6.0%
Science 37 5.8%
Medical 32 5.0%
History 32 5.0%
Psychology 27 4.2%
Technology 25 3.9%

32. Use of PDA Books
Titles with Number of titles Total titles used (%)
1 use 238 38.6
2-5 uses 260 42.2
6-10 uses 74 12.0
11-20 uses 26 4.2
21-30 uses 12 1.9
41-49 uses 4 .6
50 or more 2 .3

33. Top Ten Used PDA Titles
Title User Sessions
LEED Practices, Certification, and Accreditation
Handbook 721
PRAXIS II Mathematics 0061 (3rd Edition) 71
War, Violence, and Population : Making the Body Count 47
Anthropologies of Modernity : Foucault,
Governmentality, and Life Politics 45
Terror and Territory : The Spatial Extent of Sovereignty 43
Introduction to African Politics (3rd Edition) 42
Management Across Cultures : Challenges and
Strategies 35
Handbook of the Psychology of Aging (7th Edition) 35
Plant Development 28
Social Media Marketing : An Hour a Day 28

34. EBSCO E-books
 Netlibrary
 Discovery Layer
 PDA pilot – Summer 2012
◦ Pub Date: 2012
◦ Cost: $0-$200
◦ Language: English
◦ PDA-eligible and downloadable
◦ Exclude publishers: Wiley, ABC-Clio,
Springer, and Oxford

35. E-books in Gobi
 Only ebrary e-books may currently be purchased from YBP
via Gobi (Ebsco soon)
 a title is available in e-form, look for an "alternate editions"
link
 discount on print books from YBP does not apply to e-books.
 Catalog records for each e-book ordered are purchased from
YBP for $2.00 per title
 Ebrary e-books ordered via YBP generally become available
and are cataloged within 3 business days of the order
 We are currently not ordering duplicate titles across formats
 To help avoid duplication, we have recently loaded our
monographic holdings purchased outside of YBP into Gobi
 ebrary e-book holdings are currently not being set in OCLC
WorldCat and are not being contributed to the OhioLINK
Central Catalog.

36. Next Steps/The Future
 Continue to evaluate different e-book purchasing and pricing models
 No single approach
 ebooks on demand - PDA & PPV/STL
 eApproval
 make accessible all we can afford?
 will DDA work at the consortial level – OhioLINK
 what about stewardship
 removal of titles/replacement
 local print on demand
 Marketing
 Easy access and better usability (comprehensive search) –
discovery tools
 Look for solutions that provide even more e-book titles, available at
the time of publication, with multiple purchasing and pricing models
 UPCC Books on Project MUSE
 Books at JSTOR

37. Q&A
Thank You.
Aaron K. Shrimplin
Assistant Dean for Collections and Research Services
Miami University Libraries
shrimpak@muohio.edu