Giving the Users What They
Want: Is Patron-Driven
Acquisitions The Answer?
Buddy Pennington, Director of Collections and Access Management
Steve Alleman, Head of Collections
University of Missouri - Kansas City
Brick & Click Libraries Symposium, October 26, 2012
Background
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Huge increase in monograph publishing in recent decades
Librarians lack time to invest in book selection
Approval plans no better than firm orders at predicting use
30% of books purchased never get used
Speculative buying – ‘just in case’ – has failed
Declining circulation rates
Declining budgets
Increased demand for electronic resources
Seamless delivery of content as a goal
The Patron-Driven Approach
 Giving patrons what they want when they want it is more
important than building collections for the future
 No funds are spent until demand is demonstrated
 Widest possible range of books to choose from
 Short-term loans satisfy patron needs cheaply
 ‘Retain selectively; distribute promiscuously’
 Focus on e-books for seamless delivery of content
 Therefore no print-on-demand
ebrary vs. EBL
ebrary
More titles but not all of them eligible for PDA
More publishers than EBL
Single-user preferred or multiple-user preferred are
the only options.
50% upcharge for multiple-user
PDA titles would supplement Academic Complete
collection.
Purchases triggered by:
o Ten minutes, ten pages or any copying/printing
triggers purchase OR
o Three short-term loans (STL) trigger purchase. STL
is 24 hour loan at 10-25% of list price for the book.
EBL
All titles eligible for PDA
Leans towards the sciences; has some publishers
(like Oxford) ebrary lacks
All titles non-linear lending (multiple-user)
List price for multiple-user
Some crossover with ebrary Academic Complete
collection
Ability to select the the number of short term loans
(STLs) before purchase is triggered
Local Decisions
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Use YBP as our vendor
EBL chosen as platform
Profile wide-open, not based on approval plan
No juvenile, cookbooks, or high school textbooks
Price cap set at $500
Short term loan set at 24 hours
Seven STLs before purchase is triggered
Second copy must be bought after 325 loan instances
Dedupe against ebrary Academic Complete but not against
the print collection
Implementation and Assessment
 Discovery records
 Usage (short-term loans and purchases)
 Expenditures
 Impact
 Conclusions
Discovery Records
 Provided by YBP on a weekly basis
 Not OCLC records (customized 001 field)
 Include 590 note indicating PDA record
 If MARC record has LC call number (050) that
gets added to item record to facilitate virtual
shelf browsing in library catalog (3% lack call
numbers)
Discovery Record Loads
Month
Records Loaded
May
54,627
June
2,087
July
5,981
August
2,882
September
3,971
October (1-15)
1,531
Subject Coverage
Top Subjects by LC Class
LC Classes with 1% coverage or less
H – Social Sciences (21%)
E (History of U.S.), N (Fine Arts)
Q – Science (14%)
S (Agriculture), M (Music)
P – Language and Literature (11%)
F (History of U.S.), Z (Library Science)
R – Medicine (10%)
U (Military Science)
T – Technology (9%)
C (Auxiliary Sciences of History)
B – Philosophy, Psychology, Religion (8%)
V (Naval Science), A (General Works)
Above = 73%
Above = 7%
Usage
 Only 831 of over 70,000 titles show any
usage:
 19 have 5 or more uses
 151 have 2-5 uses
 661 have 1 use
Short-Term Loan Usage
 1,155 STLs (May – October
15)
 Spent $14,285.68 total
 $12.37 average price for
STL
 In fiscal year 2012, we
averaged $15,965.58
spent per month on our
approval plans
Month
STLs
Spent
May
37
$749.27
June
151
$2,076.40
July
163
$1,949.51
August
186
$2,231.23
September 387
$4,451.12
October 115
$2,828.15
231
STLs by LC Class
Class
Coverage
STLs
H – Social
Science
21%
25%
Q – Science
14%
10%
P – Language
and Literature
11%
8%
R – Medicine
10%
18%
T–
Technology
9%
5%
B–
Philosophy,
etc.
8%
10%
Total
73%
76%
 1% or less LC classes = 7%
coverage and 8% of STLs
 Education = 4% coverage
but 6% STLs
 Average of 1 STL for every
62 titles. Music = 1 STL for
every 22 titles. Agriculture
= 1 STL for every 282 titles
Purchases
 12 purchases since May (6 in
September, 3 in October 1-15)
 $1,190.91 spent
 $99.24 average per purchase
First Five Purchases
Title
Publisher
LC Class
Paradise Found
University of Chicago
Press
QH
Official Guide for GMAT John Wiley & Sons
Review*
LB
Introduction to LTE
John Wiley & Sons
TK
Antigone; Oedipus the
King; Electra
Oxford University Press PA
Motorcycle Diaries
Ocean Press
F
*Karen S Fischer, Michael Wright, Kathleen Clatanoff, Hope Barton, & Edward Shreeves. (2012). Give 'em what they want: A one-year
study of unmediated patron-driven acquisition of e-books. College & Research Libraries, 73(5), 469.
Other Usage
 COUNTER usage:
 3,958 sessions YTD (BR6)
 2,589 searches YTD (BR6)
 2,941 title downloads YTD (BR1)
 Other:
 38 minutes average time for online reading
 Reports on # of days for download
 Pages accessed for individual titles
Impact on Cataloging
 Discovery records loaded in by MOBIUS Consortium
Office (we do not clean these up)
 Monthly reports of titles removed from EBL
 For purchases, receive OCLC record through WCP
service. Requires MarcEdit intervention.
 Issues with not overlaying discovery record
 Issues with 856 fields
 Issues with crappy records
 Fewer print books results in changing workloads
Impact on Book Selection
 Less speculative buying?
 Cancelling ALA print
standing order
 Planning changes to YBP
print approval plan
Period
Orders
Estimated
Price
May –
October
15, 2011
399
$31,995.74
May –
October
15, 2012
261
$19,237.78
35%
decrease
40%
decrease
($12,757.96
in savings)
Impact on Collections Budget
 $150,000 end-of-year deposit with YBP
 $14,285.68 spent on short-term loans (May-October
15)
 $1,190.91 spent on purchases (May-October 15)
 Expect both to increase over time as more titles are
added
 Savings with fewer firm orders
 Next step: reduce print approval plan
Conclusions
 Pretty happy with the results: good coverage,
increasing access and usage, comfortable with
spending money on the titles that are getting used
 Too early to budget for! (University of Newcastle
spent $70,000 in five weeks)
 We don’t know who is using these materials
 “PDA…is establishing its place as a logical and
responsive approach to developing library collections
in the twenty-first century.”*
*Candice Dahl (2012): Primed for Patron-Driven Acquisition: A Look at the Big Picture, Journal of Electronic Resources
Librarianship, 24:2, 119-126
Questions?
Buddy Pennington
penningtonb@umkc.edu
Steve Alleman
allemans@umkc.edu