UserPatron Driven Ebook Collection Development

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User/Patron Driven Ebook Collection Development

• Tony Ferguson, Gayle Chan, and Janny Lai
• University of Hong Kong Libraries

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What is user-driven ebook collection development?

• A library or consortia buys only those books
  which readers read, not those which someone else
  thinks they will want to read.

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Motivation for Libraries Using User Driven Model
for Selecting E-books Same as for Libraries Not
Using this Technique

• Surveys show students prefer web based
  information
• Students are on the web, e-books are there too
• Allows libraries in a consortia to leverage their
  buying power share costs
• Allows libraries to share monographs with other
  libraries in ways printed books cannot be shared

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Case Study European Organization for Nuclear
Research

• Why did they employ this technique?
• They wanted books from multiple publishers, only
  those read by their physics, math, engineering
  and computing researchers, and to pay only for
  what was read.

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Case Study European Organization for Nuclear
Research
(Contd)

• How did they do it?
• Contracted with EBL, loaded records for likely
  titles, reader gets to read free for five
  minutes, upon hitting that mark they borrow the
  book, after two borrows CERN buys the book.
• They buy books for a year at a time.

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Case Study European Organization for Nuclear
Research
(Contd)

• Results
• They are pleased and amazed with the range of
  books bought and the amount of use.
• http//doc.cern.ch/archive/electronic/cern/preprin
  ts/open/open-2007-001.doc

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Case Study OCLC Corporate Library, USA

• Why did they employ use this technique?
• 85 of the materials added to their corporate
  library are the result of direct user requests
  if one person wanted it, others might also.
• How did they do it?
• Loaded management, computer science, technology
  and library science bibliographic entries in
  catalogue and bought them when read.

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Case Study OCLC Corporate Library, USA
(Contd)

• Results
• Books read multiple times not just once. Staff
  continued to go into NetLibrary through other
  channels for non work related reasons more than
  for work related reasons very difficult to
  predict what readers will want to read.
• E-books case study The OCLC Library. Lawrence
  Olszewski, Director

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Case Study Marion County Multi-type Library
Consortium, USA

• Why use this technique?
• most of the use of a book collections is
  generated by a small percentage of the collection
  the 80/20 rule
• that the best predictor of the future use of a
  title is past use
• the ability to purchase only needed books at the
  time of need should be more efficient that
  selecting titles in the traditional manner
• How did they do it?
• Loaded NetLibrary records, bought what was needed.

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Case Study Marion County Multi-type Library
Consortium, USA
(Contd)

• Results
• Readers bought too much, adjusted buying trigger,
  went along successfully until NetLibrary changed
  policy and required multiple copies, consortium
  couldnt afford this model and stopped in 2006.
• Only about 50 of titles read resulted in a
  purchase. Books continue to be read. Many
  purchased out-of-profile books, e.g., 355
  Complete Idiots Guides.
• David W. Lewis. The Marion County Internet
  Library and E-Books The Experience of a
  Multi-type Library Consortium

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Case Study Swinburne University of Technology,
Australia

• Why this technique
• . . . Scarce monograph materials budgets are
  wasted on materials for which our predictors or
  instincts filed us books which no one will
  read. We will spend a not insignificant amount
  of time and effort in adding them to our
  collections, and after however many years of
  inactivity, removing them again.
• How did they do it
• Loaded records, paid borrowing charge for first
  and second uses but then bought at 3rd use.

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Case Study Swinburne University of Technology,
Australia
(Contd)

• Results
• 75 of purchased books have been subsequently
  read. By way of contrast, of 24 titles manually
  purchased have been subsequently read at least 3
  times.
• Gary Hardy, Tony Davies. Letting the patrons
  choose using EBK as a method for unmediated
  acquisition of ebook materials.

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Case Study HKU libraries and the CCDM Consortia

• Why this technique employed?
• Less expensive to purchase only that which is
  read and cheaper to split costs with 4 other
  libraries than to go it alone.
• How did they do it?
• Libraries loaded all NetLibrary records and paid
  after two free uses.

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Case Study HKU libraries and the CCDM Consortia
(Contd)

• Results
• Too successful. Readers read too much and other
  library partners unwilling to pay the bills plus
  some libraries saw this as abrogating selection
  responsibility.

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The Results of Patron Driven VS Librarian Driven
Selection Compared
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What does this data tell us?

• Not all subjects result in the same use patterns
• User selected e-books generally out circulate
  librarian selected ones

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The Future of the User Driven Model Issues

• Publisher pressures to get back to one library,
  one copy, way of doing business (It killed the
  printed scholarly monograph, lets see how fast
  it can kill the scholarly e-monograph).

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The Future of the User Driven Model Issues
(Contd)

• Desire of libraries to buy new imprints, once
  they get beyond the initial decision to buy a few
  thousand (for Chinese e-books, a few tens of
  thousands) stage of building an e-book
  collection. Can publishers and vendors produce?

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The Future of the User Driven Model Issues
(Contd)

• Can libraries get away from buying books, a high
  percentage of which wont be read, and move money
  to the user-driven model? They cant do both
  at the same time.