Patron Driven Acquisitions
Elena Althaus
Cindy Ross
Cabrini College
What is PDA?
 Patron driven acquisitions is a collection development tool
that shifts a library’s purchasing decision from a librarians
decision to a patron.
 Purchasing on demand shifts library funds from academic
buying to buying what is wanted and with e-books there is
immediate right to use for the patron.
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Why PDA?
 Patron driven acquisitions allows libraries to purchase only
those titles which are truly used.
 PDA is a “just in time” purchasing method with a seamless
user experience, so that the user will not even know that a
purchase has been triggered.
 Through e-book PDA, libraries can expand the available
collection dramatically while keeping actual acquisition costs
low.
 PDA can save staff time by reducing manual purchasing and
processing of individual purchase requests and ILL requests.
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Common Objections to PDA
 PDA results in a loss of control over collection development;
 PDA does not contribute effectively to building legacy
collections;
 Triggered purchases may get out of hand if the library’s user
base is large and the collection not managed carefully; and
 PDA can increase additional staff workload.
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PDA Implementation Challenges
 Duplication
 Profile building and management
 Finding the right balance
 Changes made by publishers in availability, user access and
prices
 Purchase triggers and avoiding unwanted purchases
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Our Situation
 Small school with low e-book readership
 E-book readership concentrated in certain groups
 Desire to expand resources for underserved groups in a cost-
effective way
The decision: Pilot program targeting the student groups
currently accessing e-books at the highest frequency (graduate
education majors) as well as subject areas less represented in
our collection.
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Comparing Vendors – Main
Considerations
 Purchase Triggers
 Short Term Loans
 Platform Fees
 Publishers, Collection Breadth and Depth
 Access levels and cost (SUPO, multi, MUPO)
 User Experience
 Profile building and administration workload
 Payment options
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Comparing Vendors : the Candidates
 EBL
 JSTOR
 ebrary
 Lyrasis (uses EBL)
 EBSCO
 Myilibrary
 Gale
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Comparing Vendors (Chart)
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eBrary
EBSCO
GALE
Review
No
No
Yes
Triggers
10 minutes, 10 pages, print, 10 minutes, 10 pages, print, Review most
e-mail, download
e-mail, download
used after 6
months
Browsing
10 minutes before purchase 10 minutes before purchase N/A
triggered
triggered
Options
Deposit
Unused
Funds
In case of termination, can Can be reassigned to other
spend on any other eBrary ebsco products without
products, unlimited time to amdinstration fee.
do so.
Pricing
single user: 100% list price single user: 100% list price. N/A
- universal: 150% list price multiuser (3): 150% list
price. universal: depends on
FTE and publishers
Probably same as EBL.
Price difference between Single user: (1.2
Publisher list price.
single and multi-user can times print price on EBL recommends
be anywhere from 20% - average)
publisher set ebook
300%, depending on book Multi-user: 2.2 – 2.8 prices same as print.
and publisher.
times print price.
Fees
5% aggregated purchase
No
value – minimum of 250,
maximum of 1500. Waived
for customers with ebrary
subscription.
Setup fee
$500 hosting fee. Waived Platform fee linked Pay as you go: price
if you license seven
to spending. Can be plus 10% platform
JSTOR collections.
0.
fee, capped at 5,000.
Up-front: 3,000
Maintenance fees.
Minimum
Time
None
No constraints
Deposit or pay as you go.
None
No constraints
Lyrasis (uses EBL)
Purchasing
No
Deposit - set
amounts.
Funds can be
used for
purchases, no
refunds.
N/A
MyiLibrary
EBL
No
No
Yes
Second viewing
Mediated - after five
minutes, user can
request loan or
purchase. Autopurchase: auto for
titles accessed as
short-term loan
certain # of times
First viewing free.
Times out.
Librarian/staff
browsing not in
statistics
5 minute browsing
allowed. No page
limits.
Can be used to
purchase titles
viewed once or
program can be
extended.
Refunds possible, can
also be applied to
future purchases.
Preset defaults, adjustable sixth chapter view by
setting.
single user or multiple
sessions; or fourth
chapter downloaded,
whichever occurs first.
Payment
Pay as you go
Pay as you go.
2500 None stated
6 months
JSTOR
Deposit
5,000 None
None
Time commitment. No constraints
**Data retrieved from inquiries, vendor websites and guides and from:
Karin Byström, K., Johansson, T., Perols, K. and Tengstam, O. (2012) Patron-driven acquisition (PDA) as acquisition method at academic
libraries. Retrieved from http://www.kb.se/dokument/Bibliotek/projekt/Slutrapporter%202012/PDA%20English.pdf
Choosing a Vendor
EBSCO
ebrary
 Similar purchase triggers, collections,
access options and pricing.
 Existing relationships with both – no
additional platform fees, easy to terminate
without lost funds – ideal for a pilot
program.
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The Winner : ebrary
 Existing academic complete subscription:
 No additional platform fees
 Familiar user experience
 Easiest for de-duplication
 Ease of adoption and termination for pilot program
 Broad range of titles
 Flexibility as far as spending unused funds if we chose to cancel,
changing the collection at any moment
 Fair triggering mechanisms
 Frequent notifications for tracking use and turnaways
 MARC import and reporting
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Collection Planning
 Which discipline(s)?
 How much money?
 When and for how long?
 What types of books?
 Restrictions on price, publisher, year?
 Availability of short-term loans?
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Initiation Process
 Contacting ebrary
 Making a deposit
 Initial profile building
 Pros: simple process, few hoops to jump through, initial
profile building simple.
 Cons: long waits for responses from customer service,
difficulties in getting invoice.
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Building the Profile
 10,000 titles as a beginning – to be reduced or expanded
based on observed trigger purchases in the coming period
 Education titles from 2005 and later with a price limit of
$150, no textbooks
 Small collections designed for other disciplines based upon e-
book usage and requested titles
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Building the Profile – Adding Titles (1)
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Building the Profile – Adding Titles (2)
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Building the Profile – Adding Titles (3)
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Building the Profile – Setup (1)
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Building the Profile – Setup (2)
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PDA Summary
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Fund Codes
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Turnaways
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De-Duplication (1)
 Academic Collection
 Other Holdings
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De-Duplication (2)
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De-Duplication (3)
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De-Duplication (4)
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Reports and Notifications
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Marc Records
 Same process as loading records for academic collection
 No changes are necessary after a purchase is triggered
 Items deleted from profile will be included in monthly
deletes
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User Experience
 No difference in catalog records
 No indication that a purchase has been triggered
 Familiar platform
 Seamless user experience
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Foreseen Difficulties
 Creating and managing multiple profiles
 Filtering profiles effectively
 De-duplicating repeatedly as profiles and collections change
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 Clearly there are a host of unanswered questions needed to
be answered about where Patron Driven Acquisition practices
fit into a research library’s overall acquisition program and
collection development profile.
 What is certain however is that electronic publishing and
distribution will continue to increase.
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 Today, libraries truly have chances to either purchase, rent,
or borrow material and have substitute ways to control their
dollars.
 PDA offers libraries a selection in obtaining materials and
that is why we have choosen this program at Cabrini College.
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Challenges of the PDA Study
 DRM
 Deletes
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What are the benefits?
PDA
 More cost-effective
•Patron-selected items get used more often, research shows
• Users do not have to do anything differently
 PDA is coming into existence for a number of reasons, not
the least of which being that there are far more books than
even the largest libraries can add to their collections.
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 By apportioning some part of the library’s book budget to
PDA, libraries potentially can reduce their costs since the
purchase of some titles will be delayed until a patron actually
requests them and for some titles there will be no purchase
at all.
 PDA also may lead to better collection-building by expanding
the number of selectors to include faculty.
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 We can offer access to a wider variety of titles to our ebook




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users and not necessarily have to purchases them all.
Getting what the patron wants in a timely manner. Usage
stats. (all models)
Freeing up staff time that would have used on selection,
checking and placing or orders
Able to supplement specific subject areas of the collection,
especially those that are "thin" or in high demand/growth.
To have broader access to resources not normally identified
or seen as associated with an institution's mission!
 This is a great opportunity to allow our users immediate
access to the resources they have identified that they need in
a very efficient manner.
 Auto Purchase: nice to pay for an item only when someone
actually uses it.
 Money is not wasted on material that no one wants to read
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Removing print = new learning spaces
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Recommendations
 Question Everything & Experiment
 Licenses, Business Models, DRM, Ongoing Fees, Ownership
 Collect Data & Opinions
 Use data, patron opinions, does borrowing lead to buying
 Keep Patrons Informed
 Market the collection, but offer the good and bad
 Provide open content for the open web
 Continue to educate yourself
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Wrap Up
Elena Althaus
eka32@cabrini.edu
Cindy Ross
cross@cabrini.edu
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Resources
Demand Driven Acquisition of Monographs: Summary of Survey Result. Retrieved from
http://www.niso.org/workrooms/dda/
E-books: 21st Century:Technologies in Libraries by Wright State University Libraries Sue Polanka
http://photos.state.gov/libraries/malaysia/99931/lrc/slides_Ebooks_21Century-feb2012.pdf
Ebrary. (2014) Model Overview. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com/corp/models.jsp.
EBSCO. (2014) Patron Driven Acquisition. Retrieved from http://www.ebscohost.com/ebooks/collectiondevelopment/patron-driven-acquisition.
Karin Byström, K., Johansson, T., Perols, K. and Tengstam, O. (2012) Patron-driven acquisition (PDA) as acquisition
method at academic libraries. Retrieved from
http://www.kb.se/dokument/Bibliotek/projekt/Slutrapporter%202012/PDA%20English.pdf
Lyrasis. (2014) Easy DDA eBooks on the ProQuest EBL eBook Platform. Retrieved from http://www.lyrasis.org/easyDDA.
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