Anne Elguindi (speaker), Michael Matos (speaker)

1. Using the Past to Chart the
Future: Evaluating Top Circulating
Print Books by Subject and Publisher
to Inform Future E-Book Purchases
Anne C. Elguindi Deputy Director, VIVA
Michael Matos Business and Economics Librarian, American University

2. What is the Virtual Library of Virginia
(VIVA)?
• 73 academic libraries (39 public, 33
private, Library of Virginia), including
doctorals, four years, two years, and
specialized institutions.
• Central funding provided by the
Commonwealth of Virginia, additional costsharing by members.
• Grounded in the coordinated collection
development of online resources and an
extensive resource sharing program.
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

3. www.vivalib.org
V

4. Context for the Collection Analysis
• The Steering and Resources for User
Committees had interest in buying e-books
together based on a collection analysis.
• Of key interest was usage of print materials –
which ones had patrons checked out
consistently?
• The goal was to discover publishers and
subject areas that would be beneficial across
the consortium.
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

5. E-Books in VIVA
• E-books are relatively new for VIVA:
– Safari Tech Online, started in 2008.
– Springer and Elsevier purchases, started in
2012, informed by an RFI process.
– Demand Driven Acquisitions program, started in
2013, vendor EBL selected through an RFP
process.
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

6. Key Issue #1: Being Inclusive
• Needed a way for libraries of all sizes to
participate.
• Could not manage all books from all libraries.
• Wanted to avoid title-level matching and keep
the results generalizable.
• The result: Defined “top circulating” as
enough titles to equal 10% of a school’s FTE.
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

7. Key Issue #2: Standardizing Publishers
• Needed a way to efficiently clean the data so
that the publishers could be matched up and
grouped across the records/titles.
• The publisher field would be a difficult route.
• The result: The ISBN was used to create a
standardized publisher field.
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

8. From the ISBN to the Publisher
• A portion of the ISBN is for the registrant
element, which is used to assign a block of
ISBNs to a particular publisher.
• 0-00 through 0-19 represent large publishers,
because more numbers of the ISBN are left to
distinguish individual books.
• This pattern continues through to 0-9500000
through 0-9999999, which represent much
smaller publishers.
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

9. From the ISBN to the Publisher
0195161467
• Using a listing of almost 116,000
publishers, the ISBN was mapped to an
individual publishers.
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

10. Report Criteria
•
•
•
•
•
Circulating print books only.
Published in 1980 or more recently.
Last circulated 7/1/08 or more recently.
Copies of books are to be treated together.
Total circulations so that the total number of
records equals 10% of the institution’s FTE.
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

11. Data Sent to the Central Office
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
OCLC #
ISBN
publication year
call number
publisher
total number of circulations
last date circulated
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

12. Number of Books by Institution
787
College of William & Mary
2,875
James Madison University
1,918
J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College
468
805
Northern Virginia Community College
Old Dominion University
1,965
University of Richmond
3,545
Virginia Tech
Total Books Included: 12,363
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

13. Publishers by Number of Titles
600
500
400
300
200
100
1,233 Publishers Included
in the Data Set
0
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

14. Top 25 Overall Publishers by
Number of Titles
500
450
400
Publishers in the VIVA DDA Plan
350
300
250
200
150
Imprint of Elsevier; included in
VIVA frontlist purchase
100
50
0
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

15. Proportion of Total Titles by
Publisher Groupings
14,000
12,000
10,000
8,000
6,000
All 1,233 Publishers
Top 100 Publishers
Top 25 Publishers
4,000
2,000
0
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

16. Number of Titles by Initial
Call Number Letter
T
Q
H
P
N
A
C
E
G
J
L
N
Q
S
U
Z
B
D
F
H
K
M
P
R
T
V
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

17. Top 10 Publishers in H: Social Sciences
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

18. Top 10 Publishers in QA: Mathematics
160
140
120
100
80
60
Publisher represented by VIVA
current content purchase
40
20
0
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

19. Issues
• Does not account for e-book use, so this may
not be a relevant analysis to do in this way for
long.
• Course reserves affects this significantly.
• Publisher hierarchies are not reflected, making
for a very long tail on the data.
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

20. Where do we go from here?
• We could read the results as evidence that the
aggregated subscription packages would be
the best choice for us.
• We can also see some leading publishers
emerge in particular subjects. This could
guide our publisher approach in purchasing ebooks and seeking Demand Driven
Acquisitions partnerships.
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

21. I’m happy to provide the
code and the publisher list –
just send me an email at
aelguind@gmu.edu.
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

22. Special thanks to:
Dave Fjeld, VIVA Technical Support
And the VIVA Collection Analysis Task Force:
Stephen Clark, CWM
Gene Damon, VCCS
David Gibbs, GMU
Leslie O'Brien, VT
Genya O’Gara, JMU
Cassandra Taylor-Anderson, UR
Robert Tench, ODU
The Virtual Library of Virginia
The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia

23. USING THE PAST TO CHART THE
FUTURE: LOOKING AT PRINT
APPROVALS TO INFORM EBOOK
PURCHASING
Michael Matos
American University Library 11/8/2013

24. The Story Until Now..

Beginning in 2010 American University Library
started exploring purchasing ebook frontlists
directly from publishers.
2011, 2013, 2014 Springer
 2011,2012 Oxford University Press and Palgrave


Developed a draft eBook policy in 2010
DRM
 MARC Records (Discoverability)
 Usability of platform


25. Why are we doing this?




Digital-centric trends with our users
Increased emphasis of online learning
Space repurposing within the library
Advantages buying eBooks directly from
publishers
Often better DRM than aggregators
(ebrary, EBL, etc.)
 Own rather than lease
 Comprehensive coverage
 Price per title often lower


26. Looking at the print approvals
data
We Identified the publishers with the highest title
count
coming in on approval.
2012 Approvals title count
Springer
16
University of California Press
Compared against our knowledge base on the vendor
terms, conditions and any antidotal information.
138
Yale
163
Harvard U
145
WW Norton
Compare pricing
53
Oxford UP
459
Wiley
Look at other data sources (ILL, PDA, consortium
borrowing)
Piloted with Springer, Oxford, Palgrave…
97
Palgrave Macmillan
488
Cambridge University Press
556
Cambridge Scholars
101
Elsevier
16
*Springer 178 titles in 2010

27. Our Knowledge Base Criteria







American University’s eBook Guidelines
DRM free or very open rights
Perpetual access
Open URL Linking
MARC Records
Acceptance of the platform
Vendor has not frustrated technical services

28. Comparing against other data
sources
(What our ILL statistics told us)

Circulations statistics



ILL statistics


Look at publisher and subject area
Ranked by use
Inconclusive and mildly disturbing
Looked at the DDA

Analyze by Publisher and Area

29. Case Example: Springer
First purchased ebook frontlists for 2011
Packages in Sciences and Business/Economics
Reasons we started with Springer.
Publishes in areas relevant to our users
Good pricing model
Great DRM
Full-text Requests

30. Case Example: Springer
Challenges faced with Springer ebooks.
Early on difficulty with their MARC records
Increased ILL requests
Usage statistics not easily comparable to print circulation data.
Denials by Year and Package

31. Challenges



Increased costs overall
Uncertainty regarding publishers’ commitment
to current model
Consortium access challenges

32. Questions?