1. Purchase on Demand The Purpose, Process, and Progress
Know that a few libraries are purchasing books this way. We may be doing it on a larger scale, and in a slightly different way…
Kimberly Day
Resource Sharing Librarian
Liberty University (VLB)
July 13, 2012

2. Background Began as initiative at end of October 2008
$10,000 initially allocated toward project
Ingram was chosen as vendor
Our dean at the time was concerned about ILL borrowing stats & wanted to use funding to quickly make a dent in them. POD was something in the literature that libraries were trying; Acquisitions staff recommended Ingram because of established procedures, past positive experience, & discounts on products

3. Purpose & Goals Reduce number of books borrowed through ILL
Improve Borrowing : Lending ratio of returnable items (FY08: 4.6: 1) particularly within VIVA
Build more current and relevant print collection
Transition from “just-in-case” toward “just-in-time” collection development
Net borrower status, more user-centered holdings

4. Initial Criteria Books with publication date of 2005 or newer
Faculty book requests automatically considered
Titles available immediately from Ingram (no backorder titles)
English language
Titles costing $50 or less
Adult level/Non-juvenile
Non-Fiction
Book for which ILL request has repeatedly come back ‘unfilled’ due to popularity or scarcity
Book not owned by our library, but requested by distance learning student
*exceptions to non-fiction include new Christian fiction, particularly where part of series is owned; classic literature; a couple of times new popular fiction; NO textbooks (we do not borrow them for our students anyway); We do not borrow books through ILL for our online students

5. Additions/Revisions Amazon (Prime Account) also used
Graduate student book requests automatically considered
Religion titles considered, regardless of publication date
Titles costing $150 or less
Obtain replacement copy of a book with “lost” or “missing” status on catalog
Consider purchasing additional copy of an already-owned book which is checked out
Amazon added when we were issued Purchasing cards; Religion if available from Ingram or directly from Amazon; If someone requests book that is lost, missing, checked out

6. ILLiad Custom Queues Created
POD Review - book requests to review
POD Processing- books to purchase
POD Request Sent- books purchased
Apologies to non-ILLiad users….Created in Borrowing module; tried to mirror ILL processes, yet not go through OCLC- so set up comparable queues

7. Routing Rules created in ILLiad Borrowing
t.RequestType='Loan' and u.status in ('Faculty')
for loan requests from faculty members
t.RequestType='Loan' and u.status in ('Graduate‘)
for loan requests from graduate students
t.LoanDate>2004
for loan requests with publication date of 2005 or newer
* Staff manually route to POD Review any book requests that fit criteria list (publication date, lost, for online student, etc.) if they were not already automatically routed
Not necessary, but helped save staff time by automatically moving some requests there

8. Process begins with POD Review queue
Resource Sharing Librarian (RSL) reviews each request, and then:
routes to Awaiting DD Stacks Searching queue (if shows availability at LU) OR
routes to POD Processing queue - if decides to purchase
places ILL order if not purchasing
Route to Doc Del Module- We check holdings & stacks, pull book & put on hold or check out to user, etc.

9. Moves on to POD Processing queue
Orders from Ingram if available OR
Orders from Amazon if not available from Ingram
THEN
Enters info into Excel file
Types “LUPOD” in Lending String box on ILLiad and routes request to POD Request Sent queue
**If not available for purchase, or too expensive, places ILL request
Ingram- selection list, order at end of day; Amazon- add to cart, order at end of day. Excel file- (title, author, date ordered, cost, ILLiad TN, etc.)
We have standing Purchase Order/account with Ingram, it is one of the preferred vendors used by our acquisitions department, better overall discounts, less cumbersome process, no monthly $ limits (as with Purchasing card transactions on Amazon.)

10. Sample POD Request
Kind of small, but want you to notice where LUPOD is placed and how it looks like any other ILL request, it just doesn’t get sent through OCLC

11. Behind-the-Scenes When Ingram order is placed:
Resource Sharing Librarian (RSL) & Acquisitions staff receive with order information.
Acquisitions staff downloads order list & adds records to local catalog.
When Amazon order is placed:
RSL forwards to Acquisitions staff who add records to local catalog
RSL enters order info on RapidRecon & saves PDF of order in folder on server
RapidRecon- the University’s system to track and reconcile purchasing card transactions; saved to server so university accounting personnel can view;
Obviously simpler to use Ingram as far as steps in workflow

12. When POD Books Arrive Resource Sharing Librarian (RSL) ILL staff
notes received date in Excel file & on packing slips
stamps the books with library property stamp
gives books to ILL staff
ILL staff
process POD books same as ILL books- manually entering “LUPOD” in the Lender box on ILLiad
If POD book is for an online student:
Technical Services staff rush processes the book
book is checked out on Voyager (the library’s system)
sent to the online student
Customers are usually unaware that the book is not from another library; sometimes notice; LUO books checked out on Voyager, since we do not check books out to them on ILLiad

13. When POD Books are Returned
ILL staff
checks books in on ILLiad
places books in box in Technical Services Dept. for processing
If a customer wants the book longer than the initial 3- week checkout, the book is “Rush Processed” & then able to be checked out on Voyager (the library’s system) at the Circulation Desk.
Only give 3-week checkout, as many times books are popular and wanted by other customers (this stipulation was requested by library’s dean)

14. Why this way?
Want to put books in the hands of the customers as quickly as possible. Generally takes 2-4 business days.
Having books fully processed after the customer returns them is how this can be accomplished at our library.
Don’t want customer to wait any longer than they would for an ILL; Too many other books for Tech. Services to keep up with ; would not be timely to go through that dept.

15. Progress: POD Titles Purchased
FY 09
FY10
FY11
FY12
Total
Ingram
566
713
1,384
1,188
3,851
Amazon 68
188
394
383
1,033
634
901
1,778
1,571
4,884

16. POD Books by User Status Cumulative (FY2009-2012)
Approx. 1/3 used by resident undergraduate population; often senior honors’ theses writers need numerous sources; also a lot of faculty requests (a few who know we do this now and…)

17. Fiscal Year 2012 Approximately $33,000 was spent on POD books
1,571 books purchased
Average cost per title: $21
22% of ILL requests for returnable items were filled by POD purchases
12% of all print books purchased for the collection were POD titles
So, POD filled about 1/5 of ILL requests for returnable items; 88% of books purchased for collection were still chosen in traditional manner- faculty and/or librarian selected

18. ILL Statistics FY2012
Returnable items borrowed from other libraries through ILL decreased by 24%
Returnable items loaned to other libraries through ILL increased by 23%
Borrowing : Lending ratio for returnable items dropped to 1.6 : 1
FY2008 this number was 4.6: 1

19. ILL-POD Connection (returnable items)
This is looking at returnable items only ; you can see that borrowing and lending are becoming more even, heading in right direction

20. Conclusions & Comments
Progress is being made- lower borrowing stats, but would like to further raise lending stats (please request from us- VLB)
Preliminary positive circulation statistics
POD titles loaned to other libraries, too
Plan to continue POD program
Improvement needed to make POD titles more quickly available for ILL
Tried to get updated Circ Stats, but could not; Processing/Cataloging issue- 3-4 months before showing ownership on OCLC

21. Your Comments or Questions?My