AAUP 2012: PDA and Libraries (R. Anderson)
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This document discusses patron-driven acquisitions (PDA) from the perspective of a university library. It outlines two broad categories of library collections, and how libraries traditionally build collections by guessing what patrons want. The document then introduces PDA as an alternative model, where libraries expose ebooks and only purchase titles when patrons access them. It provides examples of the University of Utah's experiments with PDA, and discusses problems with budget management, content availability, and metadata quality. Finally, it predicts that future acquisitions will involve less mediation by librarians and more "just in time" purchasing driven directly by patron use.
![Alternatives
Share. (Ugh.)
PDA - Books: expose [everything we can] and buy only
when the patron points
Ebooks (MyiLibrary, NetLibrary, EBL, Ebrary, etc.)
Print books (LightningSource, OUP, etc.)
Print books (Espresso Book Machine)
PDA – Journals: article-based purchasing
Remember: patrons don’t need journals; they need articles
This is the opposite of the Big Deal: it’s the Tiny Deal
Problem: publishers don’t want to sell that way
J. Willard Marriott Library](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/aaup2012pdaanderson-120626115251-phpapp02/85/AAUP-2012-PDA-and-Libraries-R-Anderson-4-320.jpg)
AAUP 2012: PDA and Libraries (R. Anderson)
- 1. Everything You Wanted to Know about PDA… … from the Library Perspective Rick Anderson Associate Director Scholarly Resources & Collections
- 2. Two Broad Categories of “Collection” Unique/Curatorial (Special Collections) Orientation: Global General/Functional (Circulating Collections) Orientation: Local J. Willard Marriott Library
- 3. How Do We Build Collections? Guessing what patrons will want Buying documents based on those guesses Describing the documents (proxy docs) Organizing them J. Willard Marriott Library
- 4. Alternatives Share. (Ugh.) PDA - Books: expose [everything we can] and buy only when the patron points Ebooks (MyiLibrary, NetLibrary, EBL, Ebrary, etc.) Print books (LightningSource, OUP, etc.) Print books (Espresso Book Machine) PDA – Journals: article-based purchasing Remember: patrons don’t need journals; they need articles This is the opposite of the Big Deal: it’s the Tiny Deal Problem: publishers don’t want to sell that way J. Willard Marriott Library
- 5. Problems Budget management What if they select garbage? “What about my job?” J. Willard Marriott Library
- 6. U of U – Philosophical Context 2. Access to the river, not the pond 4. Access to whatever/wherever/whenever/however the patron wants J. Willard Marriott Library
- 7. U of U – Experimental History 30% cut to materials budget in FY09 Adopted e-first/patron-first guidelines PDA experiments: MyiLibrary Ebrary EBL NetLibrary YBP (with EBL) J. Willard Marriott Library
- 8. U of U – Experimental History E-first $640,000 on ebooks in FY2011 Patron-first $299,000 on PDA in FY2011 Print-on-demand Espresso Book Machine J. Willard Marriott Library
- 9. Outsourcing Selection Demand-Driven Acquisition via YBP/EBL Records for notification forms loaded into catalog Patron use triggers 24-hour “loan” at 10% of list price; third use triggers purchase at list Selection teams continue to receive notifications J. Willard Marriott Library
- 10. Problems Too many vendors/platforms/models Too few front-list titles available as ebooks Too little money for true, comprehensive PDA EspressNet metadata = crap Odd materials still require in-house processing of various kinds J. Willard Marriott Library
- 11. Future of Acquisitions at U of U Less of it mediated by librarians and based on librarians’ speculation More of it occurring “just in time” Less of it involving physical objects (river vs. pond) More granular; less package-y* * if we can get the prices right J. Willard Marriott Library
- 12. Contact: Rick Anderson University of Utah rick.anderson@utah.edu J. Willard Marriott Library
Editor's Notes
- #2: PLEASE NOTE: I ’ll be speaking from the perspective of an academic library, and not everything I say will apply as well to public libraries.
- #3: Both are “research” collections, but while there will always be some degree of overlap in the communities that use them and in the purposes for which they’re used, each of them still serves a primary community and a primary type of use. So, for example: at UU we have a unique collection of Mormon pioneer diaries. A freshman doing a ten-page research paper on the Westward expansion may go to the trouble of consulting those documents in the Special Collections reading room, but is probably going to make more use of the general/functional collection. A professor from Minnesota who visits our library while researching a monograph on the westward expansion is more likely to spend more time with those documents, rather than with the non-unique university press books in our general collection (many of which will duplicate holdings in her home library). My comments today are going to focus on the general/functional collection, and from now on whenever I say “collection” you can assume that that’s what I mean.
- #4: This was obviously the right process during the print era, when the vast majority of documents were tied up in physical formats. The only good way to meet a patron ’s information needs was to have the relevant physical document waiting for him in the library when he showed up. The problem, of course, is that we no longer live in the print era. So we need to ask ourselves whether, in the digital era, it still makes sense to assume that preemptive, speculative purchasing is the right way to give patrons access to documents? And given that we ’re in the midst of an explosion of just-in-time delivery options, this begs a much larger question: should the library continue building collections at all?
- #10: This constitutes the outsourcing of selection