This document summarizes Duke University's experience with an e-book approval plan. It provides statistics on the number and cost of e-books acquired, top subject areas, and discusses workflows and discovery methods. Some key findings are that 21% of books acquired were e-books costing an average of $88 each, the top subject areas were English literature, public policy, and economics, and improving the cataloging and activation of new e-book titles in discovery services was an area for improvement.

1. Acquiring Approval Plan E books:
The Duke Experience
 Nancy J. Gibbs
 Head, Acquisitions Dept.
 Duke University
 nancy.gibbs@duke.edu
1 NCLA October 2011

2. Background
 Why we decided to do this
 What we get in print
From whom
Review of books received
Importance of Gobi to TRLN
 Other e book plans at Duke
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3. Parameters of the E
Approval Plan
 E is received for US plan
 If profiled within 8 weeks of
publication
 Against all parameters in the plan
 MUPO if available
 Cost limits
 What we did if we had resistance
from faculty or staff
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4. Statistics of the Plan
 Coverage by LC class
 Coverage by Discipline
 Purchases to supplement e
Cost
LC Class
Requested by
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5. Overall Costs for Duke University
Avgas Cost per
# Shipped % Book
All Autoships 9381 100%$57.53
Print 7441 79%$49.45
E 1940 21%$88.02
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6. Top 5 LC Classes for e approval
books
Number of
LC Class titles % of Total
English
Literature 172 8.8%
Public Policy 114 5.8%
Economics 105 5.4%
Religion 101 5.2%
Sociology 100 5.1%
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7. E books by Discipline Groups
% of # of Avgas
Discipline Total Books cost
Social Sciences 38% 731 $82.08
Humanities 29% 556 $83.97
IAS 16% 316 $86.59
Sciences 11% 212 $109.78
Divinity 5% 101 $92.62
Interdisciplinary 1% 24 $171.75
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8. Duplicating Print for E approvals
 Our plan for patrons needing print
duplicates of e approval books
 We do not ask why you need a print
duplicate
 Purchased 203 (10.5%) print books that
duplicated e books sent on approval plan
 Cost for that duplication was $25,400+
 Selector vs. Faculty requests 97%/3%
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9. Top 5 Subjects/Areas for print
books duplicating e approval books
Number
Subject/Area purchased % of Total
English Literature 57 28%
Film Studies 17 8.3%
Western Europe 15 7.3%
Philosophy 14 6.8%
Public Policy 10 4.9%
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10. Discovery Methods
 How important is the catalog for
discovery of e books
 What about discovery services
outside of the OPAC
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11. How we met those needs
for discovery
 EOCR records
 Discovery service records
 OCLC Prompt Cat records
 Yankee vendor records
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12. Workflow
CURRENT IDEAL
 Titles “shipped” to Duke  Titles “shipped” to
 Receive invoice with bib Duke
and order data
 Sim. Notification
 Load into Aleph sent to Discovery
 Turn titles on in Service; they
Discovery Service; A-Z activate and add to
list updated in 24 hours A-Z list automatically
 Create list of new titles  Receive invoice with
to send to selectors bib and order data
twice a month
 Load into Aleph
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13. Forthcoming
 Continuing pilot
 Change in access model
 Blackboard requests
 Marketing needs
 Additional platforms
 Use statistics
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