Print & E-Books Use in Tandem –
Dialogue on the Implications for Library
Collections
and Publisher Programs
Rebecca Seger
Senior Director of Institutional Sales, Oxford University Press
Luke Swindler
Collections Management Officer, UNC Chapel Hill Libraries
OUP print book sales to academic libraries
2012-2015
UNC Print Book Circulation Trends
Print Book Circulation
900,000
836,031
771,473
800,000
730,659
700,000
684,837
597,197
600,000
500,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
100,000
2009/2010
2010/2011
2011/2012
2012/2013
2013/2014
Print Books Circulation Trends Implications
• As libraries buy more print books, their aggregate circulation declines
• Increasing print acquisitions will not change this situation
• Print inevitably becoming marginal niche, especially with the growing
acceptance of e-books
• E-book availability further depresses circulation of print counterparts,
especially when they become accessible before print
• UNC’s e-books strategy accelerates the print decline &
marginalization
OUP Reactions/Responses to Print Books
Trends & Implications
• We currently publish more than
6,000 titles a year worldwide, in
a variety of formats.
• Our range includes dictionaries,
English language teaching
materials, children's books,
journals, scholarly monographs,
printed music, higher education
textbooks, and schoolbooks.
• Monographs make up 1/6 of
our publishing output
E-books Usage Trends
• As libraries buy more e-books, their aggregate usage increases
• E-book usage growth exceeds increase in the number of e-books UNC
acquires
• E-books now greatly exceeds print circulation at UNC—a trend that
not only will continue but also probably accelerate
UNC E-Books vs. Print Books Use
Comparisons
• 8 publishers/vendors representing the e-book platforms with the
largest number of titles in UNC collections alone registered 881,682
uses—or more than all print circulation for all publishers
• When standardized for total monographic titles available, the relative
levels of use are even greater:
• 3,915,878 print titles as of 6/1/2015 registered 597,197 circulations in
FY2013/2014, for a ratio of .15
• 245,442 e-books for these 8 publishers/vendors registered 881,682 uses in
2014, for a ratio of 3.6—or >23X than print books
Median Requests Per Title
Jan ’13 – Sep ’15, All Titles
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
DUKE
NCCU
NCSU
UNC
Titles Used Per Term
All Owned Titles
Year 1 Usage
Year 2 Usage
Year 3 Usage
(May12(May13(May14Apr13)*
Apr14)
Apr15)
22462
56742
75769
25% increase
Top Used Titles, Jan ’13 – Sep ’15
All Titles
Tomorrow's Table
A Reformation Debate
Rose's Strategy of Preventive Medicine
Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis
Europe Undivided
How Congress Evolves
Brain–Computer Interfaces
Buddha Is Hiding
Black Magic
Nutritional Epidemiology
Module
Biology
Religion
Public Health and Epidemiology
Public Health and Epidemiology
Political Science
Political Science
Neuroscience
Sociology
Religion
Public Health and Epidemiology
Press
Oxford Scholarship Online
Fordham University Press
Oxford Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
University of California Press
University of California Press
Oxford Scholarship Online
Uses
Jan13Sep15
2236
1370
1109
928
782
596
591
570
556
546
Changing Library Collections Contexts
• Shift of collections from predominance to prominence
• Shift from finite collections towards infinity and the leveling affect
• Shift from book scarcity to abundance, if not ubiquity
• Shift from collections of record to collections of use
• Shift in answering the question of “how good are the collections?”
Changing Book Publishing Contexts
• Adapting to a world where quantity of use is measured more
importantly than quality of use – how do you publish/should you
publish for that and not for the advancement of scholarship, even in a
niche field?
Changing Library Book Collecting Strategies
• Print books title-by-title acquisitions as a loser proposition &
strategies for cutting losses
• E-books en bloc acquisitions as a value proposition & strategies for
maximizing academic support
• Moving from an overall quantitative to qualitative approach to
building library collections—and its negative impact on print
circulation
Achieving Quantitative Excellence
Qualitatively
• UNC e-books from specific core publishers—the top 100K holdings
• UNC e-books from categorical core publishers
Changing Book Publisher Strategies
• Find better and cheaper production processes
• Price rises in the most niche areas if fewer will continue to buy –
whether in print or digital to cover the costs
• Publish more non-monographic content and reduce monograph
production
• Create better tools to enable readers to buy their own print/digital
copies when reading a library licensed ebook
Conclusions
Thank you!