1. Firm-ordered vs. DDA ebooks: What are the differences?
Yin Zhang and Kay Downey Kent State University
2016 Charleston Conference Poster
Friday, November 4, 2016
Charleston, SC

2. The Demand-Driven Acquisition (DDA) Model and Practices
Common DDA business models
Short-term loan with DDA
Straight DDA with no short-term loans
Short-term loan only
Evidence based acquisition
Key definitions
A trigger threshold is commonly ten page turns within the body of the text, ten consecutive minutes of use, one print, one copy, or one download. This is also known as the paradigm
Free Use: free access to an e-book before a trigger occurs.
User Sessions in eBrary reports: the number of times a title is opened and the user performs at least one copy, print, view (page turn), or download.

3. DDA Model at Kent State University Libraries (KSUL)
DDA-based e-book acquisition pilot project in January 2012
Started with 20,000 e-book discovery records in its library catalog linked to the e-books hosted on the eBrary platform.
KSUL's DDA model is auto-purchase triggered by the paradigm with no STL component.
Selection criteria for DDA-eligible e-books are based on the print approval profile and mediated by our primary book provider YBP
Record provision
Electronic invoicing
Deduplication Services
Each week new discovery records are added to the local catalog and become accessible to KSU faculty and students.
During 1/1/2012 to 12/31/2015, 60,018 discovery records have been added to the catalog and, of those, less than 4,039 merited enough use to trigger a purchase.

4. DDA Model at KSUL Overview
Triggered
Used
Discovery Pool
4,039
9,309
60,018 discovery records uploaded to catalog 1/1/2012 – 12/31/2015
Used: 9,309/ 60,018 = 15.51% of discovery pool
Triggered: 4,039/ 60,018 =6.73% of discovery pool

5. Firm-ordered ebooks at KSUL
When an ebook is required that is not already included in the eBrary Discovery pool a firm order is placed via YBP.
Access on the eBrary platform typically becomes available within 24 hours.
Firm order eBrary ebooks can be identified by the unique YBP account number.

6. Firm-ordered ebooks at KSUL Overview
Total firm-ordered: 610
Used: 513
Firm-ordered during 1/1/2012 – 12/31/2015
Used: /610 = 84.1% of total firm-ordered
Unused: /610 = 15.9% of total firm-ordered

7. Determining Best Practice
How can the two ebook acquisition approaches be compared and evaluated?
Do firm-order ebook acquisitions translate into actual usage? If yes, do they receive a same level of usage compared to their DDA counterparts?
Does the firm-order method meet a unique need of library users that a DDA ebook program does not?
What actions do we take post-evaluation?

8. Methodology Sample Data Sources Timeframe: 1/1/2012 - 12/31/2015
all DDA ebooks during the 4-year period
all firm-ordered ebooks during the 4-year period
Data Sources
eBrary Trigger Reports
eBrary Title Reports
YBP firm-ordered ebooks (used and unused) from eBrary
KentLink local catalog MARC records

9. Acquired DDA ebooks: Annual Number and Cost
Trigger/Purchase Year
# of ebooks
Cost
Avg Cost/Title
2012
905
$86,615 $
2013
$86,725 $
2014
954
$98,433 $
2015
1,275
$126,730 $
TOTAL
4,039
$398,504 $

10. Firm-ordered ebooks: Annual Number and Cost
Trigger/Purchase Year
# of ebooks
Cost
Avg Cost/Title
2012
197
$ 19,330 $
2013
212
$ 17,496 $
2014 93
$ 7,002 $
2015
108
$ 9,983 $
TOTAL
610
$ 53,811 $

11. Acquired DDA ebooks: Top Publishers
# of ebooks %
University Presses
998
25%
Taylor and Francis
804
20%
Wiley
289 7%
Palgrave Macmillan
244 6%
Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
135 3%
Bloomsbury Publishing
127
McFarland 89 2%
SAGE 82
Elsevier Science
CRC Press 74
ABC-CLIO 60 1%
Ashgate Publishing Ltd 56
John Benjamins Publishing Company 54
Guilford 50
Of the 90 various university presses in our sample, Cambridge University is the largest contributor to our triggered titles with 208 titles (5% in total)

12. Firm-ordered ebooks: Top Publishers
# of ebooks %
University Presses
225
37%
Taylor and Francis 58
10%
Wiley 43 7%
Palgrave Macmillan 26 4%
Guilford 13 2%
Unidentified
CRC Press
Elsevier Science
Nova Science Publishers, Inc. 12
Ashgate Publishing Ltd 11
ABC-CLIO
Of the 45 various university presses in our sample, Cambridge University is the largest contributor to our firm-ordered titles with 29 titles (5% in total)

13. Acquired DDA ebooks profile: Trigger Event
Trigger Event
Overall
(n=4,039)
2012
(n=905)
2013
2014
(n=954)
2015
(n=1,275)
# of ebooks %
View
2,028
50%
54%
52%
56%
42%
Chapter Download
672
17%
28%
31%
14% 8%
Print
585 9%
23%
Copy
392
10%
11%
Full Download
(Activated in Nov 2014)
362 0% 4%
25%

14. Findings – DDA Trigger Time: Days from upload to trigger
# of ebooks
Minimum Days
Maximum Days
Median Days
4,011
1,450
384

15. Findings – Usage of DDA Purchased Titles
All except three purchased ebooks (4,036/4,039 = 99.9%) received post-trigger use
90% received under 10 user sessions post purchase as reflected in Title Report
57% of used DDA titles are free uses without any trigger and cost (5,272/9,309)
# of User Sessions
# of ebooks used post-trigger % 3
0.1% 1
591
14.6%
2-9
3,044
75.4%
10-19
288
7.1%
20-29 55
1.4%
30-39 25
0.6%
>= 40 33
0.8%
TOTAL
4,039
100.0%

16. Findings – Usage of Firm-Ordered Titles
15.9% of firm-ordered ebooks (97/610) are not used
97.5% received under 10 user sessions post purchase as reflected in Title Report
# of User Sessions
# of ebooks post-order % 97
15.9% 1
251
41.1%
2-9
247
40.5%
10-19 6
1.0%
20-29
>=30 3
0.5%
TOTAL
610
100.0%

17. Conclusions and Lessons Learned (1)
How can the two ebook acquisition approaches be compared and evaluated?
Compare and evaluate the two ebook acquisition approaches based on the actual usage of ebooks purchased during the same time period and over time.
+ Value of longitudinal study to realize the impact
+ Value of analysis and comparison based on actual usage data
+ Value of longitudinal study in formulating weeding protocols
- The analysis process is
Data-rich
Time consuming
Labor-intensive
Why is “data-rich” a minus?

18. Conclusions and Lessons Learned (2)
Do firm-order ebook acquisitions translate into actual usage? If yes, do they receive a same level of usage compared to their DDA counterparts?
Firm-ordered ebooks tend to receive less usage compared to DDA ebooks
They have a higher ratio of never used ebooks after purchase: 15.9% vs. 0.1%
They have a higher ratio of low-level usage (under 10 user sessions post purchase): 97.5% vs. 90%
They have a lower ratio of repeated subsequent uses (>1) than DDA ebooks:  43% vs. 85.3%.

19. Conclusions and Lessons Learned (3)
Does the firm-order method meet a unique need of library users that a DDA ebook program does not?
The ebooks acquired from the two approaches share similar top publishers.
Detailed analysis of the subject areas of the ebooks is underway to see if there are any disciplinary differences between the two sets of ebooks acquired.

20. Conclusions and Lessons Learned (4)
What actions are we to take post-evaluation?
Future study of cross-institutional data comparison of DDA instances
Content analysis comparing ebooks acquired from firm-order vs DDA, regarding currency, publisher availability, subject matter
Updating the profile to further narrow Discovery Pool

21. Research Partners Recommended Reading
Yin Zhang Kent State University
Kay Kent State University
Cristóbal Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
Tom Klingler Kent State University
Recommended Reading
Downey, K., Zhang, Y., Urbano, C., & Klingler, T. (2014). A comparative study of print book and DDA ebook acquisition and use. Technical Services Quarterly, 31(2),
Fischer, S. K. and Diaz, C. (2013). Four Years of Unmediated Demand-Driven Acquisition and 5,000 E-Books Later: We Gave ‘Em What They Wanted. In Proceedings of the Charleston Library Conference.
National Information Standards Organization, Demand Driven Acquisition of Monographs: A Recommended Practice of the National Information Standards Organization, NISO RP ,
Urbano, C., Zhang, Y., Downey, K., & Klingler, T. (2015). Library catalog log analysis in e-book Patron-Driven Acquisitions (PDA): A case study. College & Research Libraries, 76(4),
Zhang, Y., Downey, K., Cristóbal, U., Klingler, T. (2015). A Scenario Analysis of Demand-Driven Acquisition (DDA) of E-Books in Libraries. Library Resources & Technical Services, 59(2),