Full-Scale, Patron-Driven Acquisition of E-Books in Practice Wellesley College Brooke Henderson, Art Librarian Deborah Lenares, Manager Acquisitions and ILL Raymond Schmidt, Manager Cataloging and Metadata Steve Smith, Manager Library Collections and Preservation

Overview Who we are – Who are you? Making the decision and getting buy-in Selecting a vendor Setup and operation Funding Collection management Public services implications This is what we’re planning to talk about today. But we’ll give you a chance to let us know which of these areas you would like us to focus on.

Who we are Small, liberal arts, women’s college Highly selective, undergraduate 2300 students 350 faculty Library Collection budget Journals and databases $ 1,500,000 Monographs $ 600,000 So first who we are: We all work together in the Library Collections group at Wellesley College Library. I am… This information about Wellesley is important for you to know as you consider what the PDA experience was like for us and how it might be different at your institution. We are small, undergrad only, highly competitive, and have a relatively generous collections budget. And now we want to know who you are, so get your clicker ready..

Who are you? Library public services Library collections Library technical services Media services IT services other

What is your experience with PDA? PDA program in place Starting soon Plan to start in 6 to 12 months Still deciding What is PDA?

What is Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA) E-books purchased by patron at time of use Immediate access to content Books found through the library catalog Paid through an institutional account User is not aware if the book is owned or not

Which topics are you most interested in? Getting buy-in Selecting a vendor Setup and operation Financial impact/management Collection impact/management Use data Public services implications

Deciding to do PDA: Advantages* “Return on Investment” – Only buying what is used Immediate access to resources Access to much broader collection Building collections in new areas Ability to see what users want These are advantages of ebook PDA identified in a poll of staff from libraries with current or planned PDA programs. Some of these advantages will be useful for management “ROI” Some might be useful for collection librarians/bibliographers * PDA survey and presentation April 2010 http://bit.ly/PDAebooks

Deciding to do PDA: Concerns (True or False?) Collections will become non-scholarly, unbalanced Inability to control cost Not enough scholarly titles available DRM restrictions – Interlibrary Loan Loss of control Staff time to maintain Some patrons don’t want e-books We had a lot of questions before we started: But for many questions we decided we would just jump in and find answers as we gained experience. We’re fortunate at Wellesley to have a generous enough collections budget that we don’t squabble over it and staff and management that are willing to take risks.

Strategies for getting buy in The library is still in control Start small ($) but broad Be prepared to evaluate and increase funding if successful Steve will show you how the library has some control over what is purchased, by controlling the profile. Educating staff about this can help them get over some of their fears around this. Start small: If there’s even one collection manager that supports the idea start with funds from her budget, but don’t limit books to only that discipline. Once other collection managers see that quality books are purchased they will have more confidence. We started wth $10,000 from the science monograph’s budget, but included books from all disciplines. After five months we added another $10,000 from the social science monograph’s budget and then added $45,000 with available funds at the end of the fiscal year. This is a great way to spend end of year money since it allows you to use the money for monographs which are usually not possible for this kind of end of year purchase.

Selecting a vendor Criteria http://bit.ly/PDA_Vendor_criteria Important: Integration with book vendor Free browse Short term loan before purchase Clear copy printing displays Multiple simultaneous users Selecting the right vendor is critical to limiting your risk of overspending. We included Collections, Acquisitions and Research and Instruction in evaluation process

Setup: Creating a profile Subject areas: All (except ‘study aids’) Only titles published after 1 January 2007 Keyword exclusions: ‘for dummies’ ‘Cliffs’ Price cap = $500 All languages Set # of short-term-loans before autopurchase (2)

Setup: Creating a profile (cont.) Publishers: Included all publishers on our AP (book & slip) Expanded to include as many relevant academic publishers as possible De-duped against our ebrary subscription collection Chose not to de-dupe against our print holdings Original load ~25,000 titles; now ~45,000

Profile modifications Add publishers as they become available (almost monthly) More keyword exclusions Constantly adding and deleting specific titles Have not de-duped against ebrary since the beginning; probably should

Cataloging Issues Deciding on source of records Quality of records Existing workflows Ease of maintenance (additions, deletions) Establishing a workflow

Cataloging: Source of records Publisher (EBL) MARC record vendor (Serials Solutions) Do it yourself?

Quality: EBL MARC records Content lacking or non-standard Incorrect MARC tagging, lack of subfield delimiters Subject access weak

Quality: Serials Solutions MARC records Derived from cataloging of print versions, often Library of Congress (LC) records BUT, when LC records don’t exist, brief Books in Print records from Bowker are used (not cataloging from other libraries found in OCLC database)

“Across the revolutionary divide” EBL subject access: History Serials Solutions/LC subject access: Social change – Russia – History Social change – Soviet Union – History Russia – History – Alexander II, 1855-1881 Russia – History – Alexander III, 1881-1894 Russia – History – Nicholas II, 1894-1917 Soviet Union – History – 1917-1936 Soviet Union – History – 1925-1936 Soviet Union – History – 1939-1945

Cataloging: EBL 2010 enhancements Corrected most MARC tagging problems, but subject heading strings still a problem Changes aligned with new standard for provider-neutral records Inclusion of OCLC record number Subject access still variable

Cataloging Workflow: “a kind of reverse cataloging” Ideally, publishers and MARC record vendors work together Monthly updates: consider best way to handle deletions as well as additions Ensure purchased titles are not deleted

Selection and Acquisition Acquisitions Autopurchased get order record Order type = patron driven Firm e-book orders through Gobi Selection Avoiding firm ordering duplicates of e-books When and why firm ordering a PDA e-book makes sense Acquisitions process for auto-purchased titles: Acq librarian receives email alert from PDA vendor when an autopurchase is triggered. The record is already in the catalog, so she attaches a new order record without a pay statement (the payment comes from the deposit account). The cost of the book goes in the estimated price field and we’ve created a new order type “patron driven” to track these kinds of purchases. This is where the integration with the book vendor is critical. Although selectors can become familiar with the list of publishers included in your program, publisher’s full lists are usually not included. Be clear that firm ordering PDA e-book is NOT ordering a duplicate Selection: implications for Sci about 30% of what I would firm order is available in our PDA There are times that a selector will firm order an ebook in the PDA collection. If we KNOW a book will be used then firm ordering the ebook avoids the short term loan costs (usually 15% of the list price for each loan). If the book has been requested for reserve or by a faculty member (sometimes). We would ask if the faculty member would be ok w an ebook and then firm order. The ebook looks no different to the user but we have avoided some cost.

Funding to date Sept 2009 to Feb 2011 = $38,500 STL = $20,000 Autopurchases = $18,500 35% humanities, 26% science, 39% social sciences Does not include firm EBL orders (done through YBP) Average transaction cost $8 per COUNTER use $18 per combined STL/AP charges

Funding into the future PDA is successful and therefore a priority Will fund from monograph lines Correspond to HUM/SCI/SOC usage Estimate FY12 usage based on FY11, with ?% increase to cover additional content Should de-dupe against ebrary subscription collection annually

Collection Management Managing PDA – making titles ‘visible’ – in place of some firm orders Monitor STL and autopurchases for appropriateness of titles, remove unwanted titles/subjects (e.g., knitting, travel guides) Need to evaluate overlap with print approval plan Compare availability by publisher Compare e- vs. print use

Collection Management: Statistics Of ~45,000 titles, Sept 2009 – Feb 2011 3763 browsed 1778 STLs (47%) 196 autopurchases (11% of STLs, 5% of browsed) Working with EBL & YBP to determine overlap, availability dates, and use comparisons between PDA & print orders (AP, firm)

Public Services Implications Marketing: We didn’t! Why not? Patrons just don’t need to know Nervous about running up costs from patrons’ curiosity Some patrons don’t want responsibility of spending library $$

Public Services Implications: Benefits Noticeable increase in content ex/ use as discovery tool Full-text keyword searching across e-book collection Ability to make titles immediately visible Often satisfies the ‘library should have this’ issue

Public Services Implications Challenges are those of E-books in general; not unique to PDA: User interfaces and printing issues Image quality / not optimal for visual material Inability to browse stacks Growing complexity of delivery channels / managing user expectations

“I'm actually happy to find ebooks … when I'm working from home, it's a great way to do the work I need to do without dragging myself into the library, but I would like us to keep buying the actual books, too.” --Art History faculty member