To Beta or Not to Beta:
Considerations for Medical Libraries
Megan Curran
University of Southern California
Norris Medical Library
Beta 101
• Increasingly tech-savvy librarians become
involved in vendor beta tests
• Exciting academic & clinical tools in
development
• “Me first!”
• Librarians must ask: “What do
we want & what do we need?”
Evolution of Beta
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•
•
•
Product development: the old alpha & beta
Today: constant releases, perpetual beta
Beta as marketing tool, user in-group
“Windows 7 was my idea.”
So why bother?
Desperately Seeking Solutions
Mistakes Libraries Make
Sometimes DIY is not the way to go…
• Perils of in-house programming
• Onus of technical maintenance &
upgrades
• Maybe it’s not on the market for a
reason!
Photo: Max Sparber
When Beta’s a Bad Idea
• Staff or hour cuts, position consolidations
• Once the product’s available, will your library
be able to buy it?
• Lack of staff expertise or
enthusiasm
Beta Benefits
• ¾ of successful product innovations come
from user demand 
• Debugging leads to expert users
– Be a resource to your library & others
• Forging strong customer-vendor bonds
– Better customer service when you need it most
– Sometimes preferential pricing agreements
 Von Hippel, E. “The dominant role of users in the scientific instrument innovation process.” Research
Policy 5 (1976): :212-239.
The Best Testers
• Consider what individuals or departments in a
library will undertake a test
– Workload & enthusiasm (their benefit from
product)
– Personal comfort with technologies
– “inventive users” unconcerned with how it works
technically, only whether it meets their needs 
 Von Hippel, E. “The dominant role of users in the scientific instrument innovation process.” Research
Policy 5 (1976): :212-239.
The Best Vendor Partners
Photo: D Sharon Pruitt
• Like in testing, so in
customer care
• # & distribution of beta
• When beta goes bad,
the Internet listens
• Don’t be afraid to drop
out!
Who is Pubget?
• Free biomedical “pathing” engine 
• Retrieves PDFs from Pubmed & other
biomedical article databases in 1 click
• Launched in 2008, now serves 300 academic &
corporate institutions
• Users grew 800% since end of year 2009 
 Davies, K. “Pubget searches and delivers scientific journal PDFs.” Bio-IT World 8, no. 4 (July/August 2009): 9.
 Pubget. http://corporate.pubget.com/aboutus/landing . Accessed February 16, 2011.
What is PaperStats?
• PaperStats uses an organization’s vendor
portal log-ins to access vendor side COUNTERcompliant journal usage statistics
• Ability to calculate cost-per-use & comparison
between a la carte purchasing & packages
• 2010: 1-click ARL & AAHSL survey reporting
Beta Testing PaperStats
• USC’s statistics
need
• Formulation of idea
• USC’s close work
with Pubget
• Continued
relationship about
features, marketing
Economies of Beta
• Strange bedfellows: libraries strapped for cash,
working for free for for-profit companies
• Economic models vary widely
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–
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Free trial access to product before conversion to paid after test
Discounted price to beta testers for their service
“Buck a Bug” contests 
Some software developers paid companies for the privilege of beta testing! 
Some insist librarians get paid for the work 
 Dolan, R.J. and Matthews, J.M. “Maximizing the Utility of Customer Product Testing: Beta Test Design
and Management.” Journal of Product Innovation Management 10 (1993): :318-330.
 Prahalad, C.K. and Ramaswamy, V. “Co-opting Customer Competence.” Harvard Business Review
(January/Februrary 2000): :79-87.
 Grenier, T. “Beta blockers.” Library Journal 135, no. 10 (June 2010): :52.
Librarians as Beta Testers
“There’s a passion that librarians possess that a
typical enterprise buyer doesn’t have.
Librarians care about more than just the
bottom line, they want to do the right thing for
their patrons, and that affects how they test.
Beta tests with librarians are better than with
other communities because of their
enthusiasm, their willingness to go that extra
mile.”
Pubget President Ryan Jones
Contact Me
Megan Curran, MLIS
Head of Metadata & Content Management
Norris Medical Library
University of Southern California
megancur@usc.edu