The Secret Art of Patron-Driven eBook Acquisition: A snapshot of Cost and Control
1. The Secret Art of Patron-
Driven eBook Acquisition
A Snapshot of Cost and Control
Dana Longley
SUNY Empire State College
2. PDA?
• Model: just-in-time, not just-in-case
• Print collections: 80/6 rule*
• Coll dev: emerging fields**
*OhioLINK Collection Building Task Force. 2011. OhioLINK-OCLC Collection and Circulation Analysis
Project 2011.
**Fischer, et. al. (2012). Give 'Em What They Want: A One-Year Study of Unmediated Patron-Driven
Acquisition of e-Books. College & Research Libraries, 73(5), 469-492.
3. Abbreviations
• ESC: Empire State College
• PDA: patron-driven acquisitions
• DDA: demand-driven acquisitions (same thing)
• STL: short-term loan
• YPB: Yankee Book Publisher
4. Ebrary
Definitions
Short term loan: 1 or 7 day trigger by user
Purchase multiplier: cost of STL based on
publisher-controlled % of cost of title
Trigger:
-Copy, download or print
-10 pg views
-10 min. real usage
5. ESC Background
• FTE: ~8400 (~20,000 adult, distance students)
• 35 locations in NYS (and abroad)
• Hundreds of blended & online courses offered
• Fully online library (no physical collection)
• 4 librarians (no support staff/student workers)
• PDA since Sept. 2013
15. Top PDA Titles
Title
User
Sessions
Pgs
Viewed Total
Persuasion : History, Theory, Practice 75 2028 2103
Business Ethics : Readings and Cases in Corporate Morality (5th
Edition)
108 1940 2048
Architects of World History : Researching the Global Past 88 1624 1712
Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life 68 1628 1696
Studies in the History of Christian Traditions, Volume 170 :
Church and School in Early Modern Protestantism
60 1569 1629
Introducing Language and Intercultural Communication 76 1452 1528
Religions of the Ancient Near East 82 1306 1388
Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party : Inside an Authoritarian Regime 52 1324 1376
Introduction to Theories of Personality (7th Edition) 64 1220 1284
Supply Chain Strategies : Demand Driven and Customer Focused
(2nd Edition)
40 1236 1276
17. Image Credits
1. https://flic.kr/p/atDq3e by torbakhopper
2. https://flic.kr/p/a4Y7BV by Thomas Hawk
3. https://flic.kr/p/d5XbNW by Thomas Leth-Olsen
4. https://flic.kr/p/xXUXf by Nicole Hanusek
5. https://flic.kr/p/9DhwNs by johnson d
6. https://flic.kr/p/6PiWqn by Gisela Francisco
7. https://flic.kr/p/5j1urX by Steve Jurvetson
8. https://flic.kr/p/aec2jS by Tom Wachtel
9. https://flic.kr/p/dXtxJ8 by That’s Me
10. https://flic.kr/p/qLZjru by Kat R
11. https://flic.kr/p/iULa2A by Christian Holitzko
12. https://flic.kr/p/de5Z8v by Kristina Alexanderson
Notes de l'éditeur
-Lots of others using this model: Cal St. and Ufla-FSU consortiums, Penn St., Umd, Cornell, Purdue, Rutgers, etc.
-80/6 rule from OhioLink 2011 report: worse than 80/20 rule! 80% of circulation from only 6% of collections
-Coll dev: can help highlight emerging areas of study, especially those that go across disciplines.
-Choices: initial choices: 7 day loans, 2 loans, include almost everything available from last 10-20 years
-Price increases & spending forced us to scale back a bit: changed to 1 day loans and removed out worst publisher offenders (later went back and added some of those back in)
Decided against YPB mediator or librarian approval process before purchases.
1st 6 months of costs shocked us a bit, but cost normalized more after that.
Publisher increases started soon after launch
-50% increase in cost / trigger
-almost universal 2-3x increase in STL purchase multiplier (ave from 15% to 30-50%)
Frequent catalog updates needed (large files usually req OLIS work)
As with most eBooks, download, print and mobile use barriers
Cost predictions hard
Costs per trigger less than cost of ILL book requests
-Dec 2013 anomaly perhaps faculty member gaming system?
-Top disciplines triggered: match general student usage of library (1. Biz & econ, 2. social sciences, 3. Psych, 4. med/nursing, 5. history)
-72% of triggers were for titles with only one trigger so far (i.e., no purchase); 28% had multi-triggers
Barriers in place for download and print may explain lower numbers for these (need free ebrary personal account)
Also watch publisher reactions to this growing model…