Sue Polanka has published a summary of a panel at the American Library Association Conference on library eBook collection development practices, in which she was a panelist. Here's a summary:
Sue Polanka of the Wright State University Libraries spoke about the
various
eBook business models that libraries can choose from (or in some
cases, where there are no alternative vendors, have to live with.) She
said that libraries aren't just purchasing eBooks--they're purchasing
the software, user interface and
DRM that goes along with them. Polanka
recommends that libraries first determine what kind of collection they
want: 1) A comprehensive long-term collection, 2) Paying for
just-in-time access to titles requested by patrons, or 3) A hybrid of
the two approaches. (However, some titles and publishers may only be
available under one model.) She displayed a chart of business models,
ranging from free, all the way to short term loan/pay-per-use. As the
models become more restrictive, the DRM burden increases, and the titles
become more temporary than permanent.
Polanka spoke about the
OhioLINK consortium's program for purchasing
eBooks, which has three acquisition priorities: Shared access for all
members, unlimited simultaneous use, and unlimited lifetime use. The
consortium currently has about 41,000 titles, and generally acquires
publishers' entire frontlists rather than cherry-picking titles. In the
most recent fiscal year, 25,000 titles were added, and usage was very
high (less than 4% of the titles were not used.)
Alene Moroni of the King County Library System, said that her
libraries' eBook budget has increased by 60% in each of the last three
years, although the overall library budget has been flat. To pay for the
eBooks, they've diverted print reference collection funds. Initially,
they assigned 10% of the materials budget to eBooks, then cut the
subscription database budget in half and added the savings to eBook
acquisition. To identify which databases to cut, they're monitoring
usage by "clicks" to the databases from the library's own website, and
are cancelling low-usage databases as they come up for renewal. (They
found that vendor usage statistics were unreliable, so they're tracking
usage themselves.) In addition, they surveyed the staff to identify the
databases they used the most, and looked at the databases in terms of
community need, to insure that they didn't cancel databases for which
there was a need. The final determinant was cost-per-use.
Linda Di Biase of the University of Washington said that they ran
three pilot projects to try to get finer-grained information about eBook
usage and preferences:
In the first project, the ran a Patron-Driven Acquisition (PDA) test
with ebrary from July 2010 to February 2011, focusing on Social Studies
and Humanities titles published from 2005 to 2010. Ten activities, such
as printing, copying, reading a set number of pages, or reading for a
certain amount of time, triggered a purchase. Some information, such as
who was using the titles, was unavailable, but they were were trying to
determine if eBooks were being using, how they were being used and how
eBook usage overlapped with print versions of the same titles. The
conclusions:
- 59% of the eBooks that were purchased were already owned in
print versions, but 17% of those weren't available to be borrowed.
- 42% of the titles were owned as print and available, but
borrowers preferred the eBook versions.
- Higher than average purchases of history, economics, sociology
and political science titles.
In the second project, which is still underway, they're using eBooks
from
Ebook Library (EBL) with demand-driven purchases. Publication dates are from 2007
to the present. Of $37,000 budgeted for the test, the library has spent
approximately $25,000. Results so far are similar to the ebrary test.
In the third test, they participate in a 37-member consortia that has a
contract with EBL. The bottom line of this test so far is the PDA titles
get more use than titles purchased by libraries without patron input.
20% of the EBL titles that libraries purchased outright got used, vs.
100% of the titles purchased through the demand-driven model. In
addition, they've learned that it's okay to purchase both print and
eBook copies of the same title if the library can afford it; many
patrons still prefer print, and using eBooks to discover titles may
increase interest in print.
Anne Lee, Free Library of Philadelphia, said that the library's budget
for materials was recently cut by 50%, so they have to be a lot more
selective about what they buy. About 72% of the titles they purchase
from
OverDrive are fiction. They used to buy a print copy for every
eBook copy, but now, some titles aren't available in print. The library
uses bestseller lists and vendor information to discover titles to buy.
They're also putting more effort into discovering self-published titles
to acquire, using sources such as
Kirkus Reviews. Lee asked some
colleagues about their content development procedures for eBooks: One
suggestion was to get familiar authors, hot topics and extra copies.
Another suggested aiming for balance, especially since not everything is
available as an eBook. Some libraries found that old titles were checked
out as soon as they got them. Another found that poetry eBooks
circulated right away. The Free Library is testing the Freading model,
but they're finding that some publishers are pulling titles out of the
program, but may put some of them back in at a later date.
Finally, she said that 40% of Philadelphia residents don't have internet
access at home. They're trying to figure out how to respond to increased
smartphone use, and they've returned to determining how to best purchase
print, eBooks and databases to serve all patron types.
