Librarians at three different types of academic libraries will provide perspectives on their patron-driven ebook acquisitions programs. The shared collection development of ebooks at the CTW Consortium (Connecticut College, Trinity College, Wesleyan University) will be discussed as well. In their remarks, panelists will discuss the virtues and shortcomings of patron-driven selection, the vendors/systems offering this acquisitions option, and key issues surrounding ebook acquisitions generally.
ILS Integration: more opportunity for access to content via this method; MARC records loaded, from which selections are made– in a sense , you grow you collection by number of loads, not number of hits… In the value equation or conversation on an acquired item, usage rates highly. In keeping with just-in-time philosophy of acquisitions… No librarian mediation– as sometimes happens for ILL and, traditionally, for all purchases. CTW CHOSE to avoid this– others may include. Doesn’t mean access to all published material– users are selecting from database created from criteria set by librarians, e.g., post 2008, all university presses and specific academic publishers, price for multi-users not over $250, English language only. Use= purchase– not identified to user so no hesitation
ILS Staffing: 2 FTE Professional Development/Community of Concern Grants Received Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant for Information Literacy (2004 $600K)
Option for future: patron could select print items as well using same models/processes Price of titles: between ~ 1.2 and 1.6 (and even lately 2.0 for multiuser access) Price needs to come down I expect. Otherwise, we back to buying one copy to be shared as we do now…and sharing the cost of that copy.
No deduplication on already owned print (except triplicates ownership) Want to know if print is preferred Or if print is accessed soon after ebook is accesses OK if title is owned in print, except when owned in triplicate LC classes such as R and K
Will this information keep students from going to ebook itself? How long do they stay with ebook? What is the key information they need to make an informed choice? There is no mention that clicking through encumbers college funds…. Is this OK? What about the Quick Search and the Search Within Book– those open the book? Or are those results a part of this information discrimination step?
Publisher owned, Coutts brokered If Coutts were to go out of business, publisher negotiations (and additional payment probably) would be necessary to retain title we can currently print or download 10 pages at a time – each user can do this multiple times during their user session. Coutts is working on publishers to raise this to 20 pgs. ILL: we can fulfill ILL requests if for a chapter of book – not entire book ILL– how does small library provide access to titles to their patrons/researchers when title are only electronic. On campus OK Off campus, must use VPN or EZ Proxy? Or web access to catalog and log into network…