Theresa Calcagno, IT/Engineering Liaison Librarian Jessica Bowdoin, Head Interlibrary Loan 11 June th ASEE Annual Conference (San Antonio, TX)

 Rising costs to buy (or rent)  Increased student expectations for library copies of required textbooks  To buy or not buy: that is the question  Format preferences

 7 departments  4,287 students (headcount, Fall 2010)  42% students enrolled at graduate level  Ranked 21st in number of graduate degrees awarded. *  Ranked 23rd in graduate enrollment. * * 2009 ASEE Profiles of Engineering and Engineering Technology Colleges. Washington DC: American Association for Engineering Education.

ILL Borrowing staff frustrated by textbook requests each semester Students often kept textbooks for an entire semester, well past their due dates (usual loan period is 4-8 weeks, not the semester) Inequitable access to books

 90% of 50 most borrowed titles were requested by IT/Engineering (IT/E) students ◦ 100% of these titles were IT/E textbooks according to the campus bookstore ◦ Our library owned 76% of these titles ◦ 83% of these titles were used by Computer Science (CS) or Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) courses

Book TitleRequests FilledRequests Canceled Computer Networking (4th); Kurose3830 Designing the User Interface (4th); Shneiderman3715 Computer Security (2003); Bishop3528 Program Development in Java (2001); Liskov3211 Introduction to Data Mining (2006); Tan3014 Database System Concepts (5th); Silberschatz2710 Designing Concurrent, distributed, and real-time applications (2000); Gomaa275 Understanding Bioinformatics (2007); Zvelebil249 Database Management Systems (3rd); Ramakrishnan2317 Advanced Use Case Modeling (2001); Armour2113 Routing TCP/IP (vol. 1; 2nd ed.; vol. 2, 1st ed); Doyle1912 Discrete Mathematics with Applications (3rd); Epp197 Managing Software Requirements (2nd); Leffingwell1824 Network Defense and Countermeasures (2006): Easttom182 E-Commerce: Business, Technology, Society (5th); Laudon1716 About Face (3.0; 2007); Cooper1618 Modern Control Theory (3rd); Brogan1612 Introduction to Software Testing (2008): Ammann1612 Official (ISC) guide to the CISSP CBK (2007): Tipton166 Telecommunications (4th); Hioki1519

1. Soliciting reserve requests from faculty 2. Creating an open reserves area in the library for these textbooks 3. Placing the books on Permanent Reserve 4. Having the IT/E Librarian place the textbooks on reserve as needed

 Provides an opportunity for library outreach to the engineering faculty and students  Allows for better oversight of reserve titles  Ensures that texts are added to or removed from the Reserves area in a timely fashion  Gives greater flexibility in identifying and purchasing new high-demand titles

 Space determined number of titles  ILL staff identified 50 most requested IT/E textbooks using ILLiad ILL software  Textbook titles were matched to courses using University bookstore textbook lists  IT/E librarian placed owned titles on reserve, ordered books that were not owned, and notified instructors of impacted courses about reserves program  ILL requests for these titles were canceled

Pilot continued due to these factors:  More than 50% of the Reserve items circulated ≥5 times during the 1st semester  Number of ILL borrowing requests for textbooks decreased  Positive feedback from Reserves staff and IT/E faculty involved with this program

StatisticValue Number of Unique Titles71 Number of Titles Also Available as E-books 10 (14%) Number of Unique Courses70 Average total enrollment per semester 1284 Total Charges Recorded1531 Average charges/semester383 Average charges/title borrowed28 Average charges/title borrowed per semester 7 Total Charges, Top 5 Titles772 (50.4%) Total Charges, Top 10 Titles983 (64.2%)

CategoryValue Average cost to borrow a book through ILL $17.50 Number of books not borrowed (estimated) 960 ILL Savings (estimated)$16, Number of books purchased (actual)25 Average cost per book (actual)$ Cost to purchase books for program (actual) $3, Net savings to Library$13,669.32

 Met goals of project to reduce ILL demand for engineering textbooks and increase student access to these titles  Saved money  Received positive feedback from IT/E faculty, who now see the library as being a proactive partner in addressing a problem they care about

Questions?