Evaluating “Their” Selections-- The Value of Customer eBook Purchases Ellen Safley, PhD Director of Libraries University of Texas at Dallas

Introduction  About the Library  Print  Our Ebook collection  Customer-initiated Selection  Librarian selection of print and ebooks  Results  The Future

About the University of Texas at Dallas  Began life as a research center created by the founders of Texas Instruments  Starting its 42 nd year  + 17,000 students 40% graduate students  Known for computer science, engineering, speech and hearing, quantitative management, neuroscience, arts and technology, and natural sciences

Composition of University

Graduate School Composition

About the Library  Over 2.5 million volumes and nearly 2 million titles. No storage—nearly all in one building  975,000 eBooks and still counting  Nearly 50,000 ejournals  Maximize access

Print  Direct purchases of print. Also use Amazon for rapid/credit card purchases.  YBP direct purchases  Mixture of print and electronic  No major book approval  only electronic slip plan and very small Texana program.

Still Buying Paper at a Reduced Rate

38% unused after 3 years

Comparing 2008 to 2010 print purchases by call number

Selecting eBooks Over 600,000 eBooks are loaded in the library catalog.

E-book Collections  Began with a NetLibrary consortial project in 1998 in the University of Texas System  Tried to cast a large net to see various models of ebook selection—consortium, subscription/database, direct purchase, customer selection  Look across different models of selection and access

What about eBooks?  Direct Purchase  YBP--Includes single and multiple simultaneous users with different systems (EBL, ebrary, etc.)  Consortial purchasing—NetLibrary, Gale, etc.)  Subscribe to databases  Historical publications (EEBO, Sabin, etc.)  Subject based (Safari, ACLS Humanities E-Book, Cognet, etc.  Purchase of collections (Springer, APA PsycNet, Elsevier, etc.)  Customer selection  EBL, ebrary Pilot, Elsevier program

AND Librarian Selection of eBooks  Began individual ebook purchases directly through EBL in 2005  Led to EBL selections through Blackwell and later YBP  Began customer selection in 2008  Was also part of the ebrary Pilot and Elsevier program ( )

A Long History with EBL  2005 Direct orders to EBL  Order through Blackwell and later YBP  Direct purchase by customers  Short Term Loans

Customer-Initiated Selection  Profiled for major academic publishers  Profiled for new publications not retrospective  In social sciences, computer science, and technology  Not psychology, humanities, or natural sciences  Selected price limit and number of views before a purchase trigger occurred

EBL on Demand  September 2008-July months  441 ebook titles purchased by customers  Purchase triggered on second use of +10 minutes  The 441 books used 3035 times  Average use=6.9 times per book  Short Term loans—1,236 titles-- from 9,504 possible bibliographic records loaded in the catalog  Paid for first use—about 15-20% of cost of book

Costs VolumesCost Customer441$41,746 Librarian2029$195,616 Short Term Loan1236$15,509 NOTE: 441 customer selections were also first a Short Term Loan. BUT 795 books (1236 minus 441) were used only once. Average price of customer selected books is about $95 ($41,746/441). Potential purchase price over $75,000 (795*$95) avoided by STL

2008 Purchases--Top 10 in Use Discrete mathematics and its applications Fundamentals of database systems Corporate finance Principles of physical biochemistry Cultural studies : theory and practice Pablo Neruda Database design, application development, and administration Cuba's Nicolás Guillén : poetry and ideology Inside the studio : two decades of talks with artists in New York Women and leadership : the state of play and strategies for change

Most Usage--Top 10 EBL Project Management : A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling Distributed Computing : Principles, Algorithms, and Systems Database and Applications Security : Integrating Information Security and Data Management Programming Interviews Exposed : Secrets to Landing Your Next Job Building Trustworthy Semantic Webs Microbial Physiology, Fourth Edition Art and Design in Photoshop Handbook of Personality : Theory and Research LTE, The UMTS Long Term Evolution : From Theory to Practice Problem Solving in Automata, Languages, and Complexity

Variations in Selection

Observations  Librarians are purchasing in all call numbers while customers are not. Does show an acceptance for selecting ebooks.  Use of electronic books is stronger than print  Use of customer initiated selection is outpacing librarian selection BUT this could be because of the purchasing procedures

Customer are selecting more H’s than librarians. Can see the lack of selection in humanities due to the customer profile.

Librarians could be purchasing more in H and T given the usage. Strong usage by librarian selections in Q show need to expand customer profile.

2008 – July 2011  Customer selections with EBL  Average book used 6.87 times  29.8% purchased before 2011 were never used outside the original year  Librarian selections from EBL  Average book used 4.57 times  45.1% purchased before 2011 were never used outside the original purchase year  Short Term Loans  795 titles used once through customer selection and not used again.

2008 – July 2011  2008 Print  38% never used  Average book used 1.7 times  2009 print  36% never used  Average book used 1.2 times  2010 print  60% never used  Average book used 1.3 times

ebrary  38,277 sessions  Total of 44,853 titles  From 2008-July 2011—10,897 used (24.3% used)  650,052 pages viewed

Safari Tech, 2010-July 2011  Access to the complete Safari Tech Library  9 seats  12,282 titles  10,696 sessions // 15:22 Minutes per session  53% of titles were never used

Safari Tech Usage (hits) 2010-July 2011

What Else Do We Know?  Often customer selections are used during a period and not again. Cannot prove it is use by one person, one course, or ??  Librarians are selecting eBooks that seem to find a wide audience. (NOTE: More than 65% of student body in engineering, natural science, and management)  Print in computer science and technology are used. Purchase more print in humanities that expands the content available but lack of use is more a reflection of the size of the student body (10%). (NOTE: More than 65% of student body in engineering, natural science, and management)  Use of databases of eBooks is strong.

Big Deals  We have PLENTY of “big deals” with database subscriptions or purchases of publisher collections. Will we regret the publisher packages in the future due to maintenance fees? Sometimes we own the content and sometimes it is leased—more regrets?  Rights for collections of eBooks are improved over database or direct selection through a jobber. But do you need all of the publications from a publisher?  Lots of unused content, but price is lower per volume.

Finally… HUGE  My library is not typical and demand for eBook content is HUGE from non-traditional library customers.  We are convinced that customer selection is critical for academic library collection development. Repeated use of eBooks is a concern.  We embrace being a hybrid library

Questions??? Ellen Safley Director of Libraries