Using the Past to Chart the Future: Evaluating Top Circulating Print Books by Subject and Publisher to Inform Future E-Book Purchases Anne C. Elguindi Deputy Director, VIVA Michael Matos Business and Economics Librarian, American University

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia What is the Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA)? 73 academic libraries (39 public, 33 private, Library of Virginia), including doctorals, four years, two years, and specialized institutions. Central funding provided by the Commonwealth of Virginia, additional cost- sharing by members. Grounded in the coordinated collection development of online resources and an extensive resource sharing program.

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The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Context for the Collection Analysis The Steering and Resources for User Committees had interest in buying e-books together based on a collection analysis. Of key interest was usage of print materials – which ones had patrons checked out consistently? The goal was to discover publishers and subject areas that would be beneficial across the consortium.

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia E-Books in VIVA E-books are relatively new for VIVA: – Safari Tech Online, started in – Springer and Elsevier purchases, started in 2012, informed by an RFI process. – Demand Driven Acquisitions program, started in 2013, vendor EBL selected through an RFP process.

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Key Issue #1: Being Inclusive Needed a way for libraries of all sizes to participate. Could not manage all books from all libraries. Wanted to avoid title-level matching and keep the results generalizable. The result: Defined “top circulating” as enough titles to equal 10% of a school’s FTE.

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Key Issue #2: Standardizing Publishers Needed a way to efficiently clean the data so that the publishers could be matched up and grouped across the records/titles. The publisher field would be a difficult route. The result: The ISBN was used to create a standardized publisher field.

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia From the ISBN to the Publisher A portion of the ISBN is for the registrant element, which is used to assign a block of ISBNs to a particular publisher through 0-19 represent large publishers, because more numbers of the ISBN are left to distinguish individual books. This pattern continues through to through , which represent much smaller publishers.

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia From the ISBN to the Publisher Using a listing of almost 116,000 publishers, the ISBN was mapped to an individual publishers

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Report Criteria Circulating print books only. Published in 1980 or more recently. Last circulated 7/1/08 or more recently. Copies of books are to be treated together. Total circulations so that the total number of records equals 10% of the institution’s FTE.

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Data Sent to the Central Office OCLC # ISBN publication year call number publisher total number of circulations last date circulated

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Number of Books by Institution Total Books Included: 12,363

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Publishers by Number of Titles 1,233 Publishers Included in the Data Set

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Top 25 Overall Publishers by Number of Titles Publishers in the VIVA DDA Plan Imprint of Elsevier; included in VIVA frontlist purchase

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Proportion of Total Titles by Publisher Groupings

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Number of Titles by Initial Call Number Letter H P Q

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Top 10 Publishers in H: Social Sciences

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Top 10 Publishers in QA: Mathematics Publisher represented by VIVA current content purchase

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Issues Does not account for e-book use, so this may not be a relevant analysis to do in this way for long. Course reserves affects this significantly. Publisher hierarchies are not reflected, making for a very long tail on the data.

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Where do we go from here? We could read the results as evidence that the aggregated subscription packages would be the best choice for us. We can also see some leading publishers emerge in particular subjects. This could guide our publisher approach in purchasing e- books and seeking Demand Driven Acquisitions partnerships.

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia I’m happy to provide the code and the publisher list – just send me an at

The Virtual Library of Virginia The consortium of the nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia Special thanks to: Dave Fjeld, VIVA Technical Support And the VIVA Collection Analysis Task Force: Stephen Clark, CWM Gene Damon, VCCS David Gibbs, GMU Leslie O'Brien, VT Genya O’Gara, JMU Cassandra Taylor-Anderson, UR Robert Tench, ODU

USING THE PAST TO CHART THE FUTURE: LOOKING AT PRINT APPROVALS TO INFORM EBOOK PURCHASING Michael Matos American University Library 11/8/2013

The Story Until Now..  Beginning in 2010 American University Library started exploring purchasing ebook frontlists directly from publishers.  2011, 2013, 2014 Springer  2011,2012 Oxford University Press and Palgrave  Developed a draft eBook policy in 2010  DRM  MARC Records (Discoverability)  Usability of platform

Why are we doing this?  Digital-centric trends with our users  Increased emphasis of online learning  Space repurposing within the library  Advantages buying eBooks directly from publishers  Often better DRM than aggregators (ebrary, EBL, etc.)  Own rather than lease  Comprehensive coverage  Price per title often lower

Looking at the print approvals data Springer16 University of California Press138 Yale163 Harvard U145 WW Norton53 Oxford UP459 Wiley97 Palgrave Macmillan488 Cambridge University Press556 Cambridge Scholars101 Elsevier Approvals title count We Identified the publishers with the highest title count coming in on approval. Compared against our knowledge base on the vendor terms, conditions and any anecdotal information. Compare pricing Look at other data sources (ILL, PDA, consortium borrowing) Piloted with Springer, Oxford, Palgrave… *Springer 178 titles in 2010

Our Knowledge Base Criteria  American University’s eBook Guidelines  DRM free or very open rights  Perpetual access  Open URL Linking  MARC Records  Acceptance of the platform  Vendor has not frustrated technical services

Comparing against other data sources (What our ILL statistics told us)  Circulations statistics  Look at publisher and subject area  Ranked by use  ILL statistics  Inconclusive and mildly disturbing  Looked at the DDA  Analyze by Publisher and Area

Case Example: Springer Full-text Requests First purchased ebook frontlists for 2011 Packages in Sciences and Business/Economics Reasons we started with Springer. Publishes in areas relevant to our users Good pricing model Great DRM

Case Example: Springer Denials by Year and Package Challenges faced with Springer ebooks. Early on difficulty with their MARC records Increased ILL requests Usage statistics not easily comparable to print circulation data.

Challenges  Increased costs overall  Uncertainty regarding publishers’ commitment to current model  Consortium access challenges

Questions?