Keeping Up with Patron Driven Acquisitions

Ashley Avila 

American Library Association (2014). "Keeping Up With... Patron Driven Acquisitions", American Library Association. https://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/keeping_up_with/pda 

Summary:

Libraries usually use the "Just in Case" Model for collection development. The model was librarians buying items in anticipation for future needs by patrons. This led to books sitting on the shelves with little to no circulation. There was then a shift to using the "Just in Time" Model. This modal was buying titles on demand, also known as Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA). Prude University conducted a study comparison of circulation rates between the two methods. It was found that using PDA model the books were twice as likely to circulate. There are benefits and challenges to using PDA model with e-books according to the author. The benefit is there is immediate access to materials and it reduces the work load of staff. The challenges are the limited availability of e-books, publisher restrictions, Digital Rights Management (DRM), and long-term licensing concerns. 

Review:

This article gives an insight on the two different models of collection development. This is an example on how collection development practices can impact the circulations rates of materials. If we anticipating needs, then books are going uncirculated due to there being no immediate need. On the other hand, when materials are bought as requested, books are more likely to circulate and the library can map the community immediate needs.

Collection Development Based On Patron

 Mao Yang

APA: Allen, M., Ward, S., Wray, T., & Debus-López, K. (2003). Collection development based on patron requests: Collaboration between inter-library loan and acquisitions. Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services, 27(2), 203-213.

Summary:
Allen, Ward, Wray, & Debus-Lopez (2023) used this article to see the effectiveness of collection development based on patrons. They called this method On-Demand Collection Development. On-Demand Collection Development is when the librarian purchases a book rather than borrow through inter-library loan. It was found that this method was more cost-efficient and patrons received their requests faster. Allen, Ward, Wray, & Debus-Lopez (2023) believes that on-demand collection development is a practical aspect that meets both patron and library needs.

Evaluation:
This article focused on using the method on academic libraries. I think this method works well in academic libraries because the patrons are university students or faculty member. I would like to see if this method would work on public libraries. When there is a wider range of interest and patron, I wonder how the on-demand collection development would work. Overall, I think it's a great method in collecting books because the library owns the book compared to inter-library loans.

Demand-driven cooperative collection development: three case studies from the USA

 Peterman, Rhian

Booth, H. A., & O'Brien, K. (2011). Demand-driven cooperative collection development: three case studies from the USA. Interlending & Document Supply, 39(3), 148–155. https://doi.org/10.1108/02641611111164636

This article gives a detailed overview of the demand-driven acquisition process in conjunction with collaborative multi-institutional collection development policies between libraries. The article likewise addresses the successes and issues faced with conducting this form of collection development. Furthermore, the authors note the future implications this form of library collection strategy may have on shifting individual collections to a holistic network forming a single library collection.   

The authors present a very fascinating concept for collection development. Further investigation into the prospect of de-emphasizing individual library collections in lieu of geographically formed consortiums, i.e., one large collection that multiple institutions support and take part in. If widely adopted, the proposed framework in this article could provide broad sweeping stability for libraries in general.

Overdrive to Offer Cost-Per-Circ Model for Ebooks and Audiobooks to Library and School Partners

DiBello, Amy

Bartholomew, H. (2018). Overdrive to Offer Cost-Per-Circ Model for Ebooks and Audiobooks to Library and School Partners. Overdrive Blogs. Retrieved from https://blogs.overdrive.com/general/2017/05/30/overdrive-offer-cost-per-circ-model-ebooks-audiobooks-library-school-partners/

https://blogs.overdrive.com/general/2017/05/30/overdrive-offer-cost-per-circ-model-ebooks-audiobooks-library-school-partners/

As I have been putting together presentation #4, I've been crunching the numbers on how to provide my library with more eBooks and eAudiobooks. Overdrive is taking a page from the hoopla playbook, and will soon offer cost-per-circ options for public and school libraries. 

This blog post by Hadie Bartholomew, Overdrive Communications Manager gives collection development librarians the means to meet patron-driven acquisition needs and libraries will only be charged when a patron actually borrows a title. It is possible to stay within a library budget and get patrons immediate access to an ebook without having to place a hold on a title.

My own public library uses hoopla, which has become one of my favorite apps, because it is ridiculously easy to use and has an excellent selection of books, movies, TV shows, music, and audio books to choose from. We are limited to five loans per month, so it will be interesting to see how Overdrive might change in the near future.

Format Follows Function

Denise Lester
Peet, L. (2015) Format follows function. Library Journal, 140(14), 34-37.

This article discusses the ever challenging task of not only selecting titles that patrons want, but also selecting the right format.  With so many options within a prescribed format, librarians have to constantly anticipate the expectations of their patron's preferred titles and preferred formats.  This can be especially challenging if the collection is patron driven.  If it is not patron driven, then the librarian is at liberty to select titles and formats based on past usage.  However, if the collection is patron driven, then the collection risks being too heavy and unbalanced in one area (genre and format) and not others.  The author offers current assistive tools available through vendors and explains acquisitions techniques that help librarians determine titles and formats for succesfull cross platform development.

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The P-D-A of It: Chicago Public Library's Patron-Driven Acquisitions Pilot, Part 1 estimated 5 pgs

Natalie Villegas 

INFO 266: Spring 2016

Medlar, M., Murphy, D. M., & Sposato, S. (2014, October). The P-D-A of It: Chicago Public Library's Patron-Driven Acquisitions Pilot, Part 1. Z687: Creating the Future of Technical Services. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/alcts/resources/z687/cplpda1#a1 

In Chicago Public Library’s quest to develop a more patron driven collection development process they examined several processes and vendor roles. One was the Demand Driven Acquisitions (DDA) which calls for the collection department to preload potential titles to focus rather than limit materials as there is a large selection of titles in publication to choose from. The Chicago public library felt by having titles preloaded would bring awareness to patrons who wouldn’t have thought to make recommendations or bring awareness to the possibilities available. The preselection process is done through Ingram, which provides collection development services for a fee. Ingram will create a list of potential titles based on the Chicago Public Library’s parameters; then the staff in the collection development team reviews it and deletes any titles that already exist in the collection.  After this process the new titles are then incorporated in to the open catalog to be discovered.

The way in which the Chicago Public Library developed the parameters in which Ingram used for the selection process was quite efficient and established good guidelines for what would be desired by the community. The first step for the public library was to pull two years’ worth of inter library loan requests to review for patterns in publishers and subjects. Instead of selecting individual titles, the Chicago Public Library would preload full lists from trusted publishers; this was not only done for efficiency sake, but to guarantee that niche-interest titles would not be overlooked.

As noted in the article, the selections were divided into two parts:

1. the initial set-up, basically a PDA opening day collection that would populate the catalog with two years of back-list content; and
2. the ongoing titles, which would be what we would update the catalog with on a monthly basis moving ahead through the life of the project.

It is interesting to note they melded the current collection development and public driven acquisition processes together by having a delay in the monthly upload of titles; meaning there was an established 5 month lag. For example the titles uploaded in May would have been those titles selected in January, in order to provide time for the normal collection development to take place. Its interesting to note they still highlight the need for human involvement in the selection process before the list is incorporated. Chicago Public Library notes that occasionally books that technically meet the parameters will still need to be cut because they don’t meet the collection guidelines. The examples used in the writing include gift edition sets, and those materials selected at a higher scholarly level then that selected for their community. This also led to some publishers being dropped, such as Yale, Princeton, and Oxford publishing.

Since the projects initiation (fall 2013) the library has seen some “5,611 title added to the catalog based on the established parameters; 934 (16%) have been selected for purchase costing approximately $19,120”. The topics have consisted of computer programming, general technology, business, spiritual and religious nonfiction, an self-help titles. Of the 77 locations in the public library system, patrons from 74 locations have participated in the pilot program. 

Patron-Driven Acquisitions at City University of New York

Hober, Michael

Egan, N., Yearwood, S. L., & Kendrick, C. L. (2016). Patron-driven acquisitions at the City University of New York: A case study. Technical Services Quarterly, 33(2), 131-144.

Descriptive Summary: This study describes how a patron-driven acquisition system was tried at City University of New York, which is made up of 24 colleges spread throughout New York City. Working with publishers, they developed a list of 4,602 titles were not duplicated within their library system that would be automatically purchased when patrons viewed these items beyond the table of contents when browsing. Their $75,000 budget lasted for four months with this system. They found that several concerns present in their literature review - that collection quality would diminish, that patrons would intentionally trigger purchases, and that librarians would assert influence over the process - were not found to be issues in this program.  The authors conclude that if budget limitations and the time to set the program up to run well were not so high that they would continue to use this as a tool for collection development in the future.  

Evaluation: The article does a good job of highlighting how important the work of setting up the program before its implementation was in the success of the program. The librarians who implemented this needed to comb through all 24 college libraries to eliminate duplication, select titles appropriate for their college aged audience, and negotiate with publishers before the program went live. Their work beforehand was what allowed them to have a successful program that avoided the common pitfalls that participants in similar programs that were discussed in the literature review had issues with.  Even so, I'm not entirely convinced that patron-driven acquisitions should be a large part of collection development, though maybe it can have some small role.  

Patron-driven acquisition and the educational mission of the academic library

Lin, Connie

Walters, W. H. (2012). Patron-driven acquisition and the educational mission of the academic library. Library resources & technical services, 56(3), 199-213. Retrieved from: https://journals.ala.org/lrts/article/view/5528/6796

Summary: Patron-driven acquisition (PDA) is one type of acquisition system based on allowing patrons to select and purchase books for library collections without staff oversight. The goals of PDA programs are to provide immediate access to materials patrons might need and create a book selection responsive to patrons’ requests. However, Walter argues that PDA programs do not improve the quality of academic library collections due to the several factors like students’ inability to balance their own immediate desires with their long-term educational needs and lack of equal collection representation. By creating such PDA programs, Walters argues that while it is efficient in information delivery, it creates unbalanced or biased collections that fail to represent the full range of library stakeholders and may not support mission statement or goals of the library or institution.

Evaluation: Walters presents a persuasive argument against using patron-driven acquisition in academic libraries with examples from actual academic libraries. He categorize the libraries in the various types of patron-driven acquisition programs and provides helpful questions to keep in mind if a library decides to head down that road.  I thought this was a strong article about problems that arise from patron-driven selection process. Walter presents clear reasons and examples pull from real life situations. The author also admits that there has been no empirical study or comparative approaches that directly deals with the question of patron-driven selection’s impact on the collection, but provides advice for someone if they wanted to go ahead and do a study. Walters also does not write off patron selection all together – instead he just cautions giving patrons a no-holds bar access without librarian oversight. However, this is a specific article focused on academic libraries only. There is no mention of PDA programs in public libraries and I would be curious about their impact on selection.

Don't Fear the Reader: Librarian versus Interlibrary Loan Patron-Driven Acquisition of Print Books at an Academic Library by Relative Collecting Level and by Library of Congress Classes and Subclasses.

Zatko, Ruzena

Tyler, D. C., Melvin, J. C., Epp, M., & Kreps, A. M. (2014). Don't Fear the Reader: Librarian versus Interlibrary Loan Patron-Driven Acquisition of Print Books at an Academic Library by Relative Collecting Level and by Library of Congress Classes and Subclasses. College & Research Libraries, 75(5), 684-704. doi:10.5860/crl.75.5.684

 

Summary

 

Tyler et al. 2014 discuss to not have a lot of Patron Driven Acquisition because it will weaken the collection as a whole. It is important to be selective with the patrons requests because the librarian should focus on the strength of the collection. The research tested to see what the impact would be if 1/2 of acquisitions were patron driven over a 5 year cycle, which did not show a significant difference to the quality of the collection.

 

 

Evaluation

 

As an acquisitions librarian, its important to make right decisions for the collection. A large focus on patron-driven material can hurt the collection and hardly belongs in the academic library. In a library researched, it demonstrated that 30% of patrons were using materials for recreational use rather than academic use when the library had more patron-driven options. The researchers wanted to delve deeper and see what would happen over a five year period if the acquisitions were 50% patron driven and 50% demand. However, this proved to not off set the collection. The limitation in the research is that it was a single-site survey. Also, with the data it is hard to say how long it would take for there to be an imbalance in the Patron Driven Acquisitions.

Buy, Don't Borrow: Patron-Driven Collection Development

Amy Kumar


Anderson, K. J., Freeman, R. S., Hérubel, J.-P. V. M., Mykytiuk, L. J., Nixon, J. M., & Ward, S. M. (August 06, 2002). Buy, Don't Borrow. Collection Management, 27, 1-11.

Summary
This article presents the data collected by Purdue University Libraries in 2000, when the libraries implemented their Books on Demand program. The collection development staff purchased items that were requested via interlibrary loan rather than borrowing the items and added them to the permanent collection once the patron returned the item. Five subject bibliographers reviewed the 800 titles that were collected after a two year period, and compared them to titles acquired the traditional way via acquisition policies in place. The study found that the Books on Demand program was a valuable tool and resulted in relevant titles that fit into the larger collection development goals. The study also found that patron driven purchases filled in the interdisciplinary gaps that typically exist in academic collections.
Analysis
Patron-driven collection development policy techniques are gaining attention across library types, and this study provides a deep look at the various issues within academic library collection development policies. Various aspects are explored, including the long term development of a patron driven collection and interdisciplinary titles and where they belong. The circulation statistics provided in the article are enlightening, and the success of the Books on Demand program is encouraging. I think this would be an important study to cite to those collection managers who are reluctant to implement such a program.  

More PDA Needed in Libraries (Patron-Driven Acquisition, that is!)

Laudato, Maricar

Ward, S. M. (2014). Patrons: Your new partners in collection development. American Libraries Magazine.

Summary

Suzanne Ward describes how Patron-Driven Acquisition (PDA) can help increase the circulation statistics of the library. The ways in which PDA increases circulation is through purchases triggered by: Interlibrary Loan (ILL) requests, selection from a vendor’s list, and use after discovery as an eBook. Whenever a library receives an ILL request, the library may just purchase the item since it is in demand from its patrons. In regards to eBooks, after patrons check out a particular title in eBook format a particular number of times, the library orders the book since it is in demand.

Evaluation

Ward’s article is another example that underlines the importance of patron input when it comes to developing your library’s collection. Patron participation in the collection development process is critical to not only help foster healthy circulation statistics, but to create a more meaningful collection for our patrons. While Patron-Driven Acquisition will not completely replace the Librarian’s final say in what gets added to the collection, PDA should definitely play a significant role in the acquisition process.

Collection Development in Cyberspace: Building an Electronic Library Collection

Casso, Gillian

Collection Development in Cyberspace: Building an Electronic Library Collection

Elkordy, A & Kovacs, D. K. (2000). Collection development in cyberspace: building an electronic library collection. Library Hi Tech, Vol. 18 Iss: 4, pp.335 – 361

Summary: This article describes the importance of expanding resources for patrons including those that are available in electronic format. As web based resources become more prevalent, librarians need to develop new skill sets and awareness. Librarians need to be able to identify, facilitate and educate library patrons on how to access electronic resources and when to use them. The creation of an e-library collection is one way of making sure libraries and patrons have the same kind of access to electronic resources as they had to traditional print resources. This article is a practical discussion of developing and implementing a collection plan for building a Web-based e-library. The article will also discuss patron needs, service levels and patron expectations. It will also discuss how and where to find, identity, evaluate and select appropriate information resources.

Evaluation: In the years that I have worked for public libraries I have seen electronic resources grow and expand. As these resources have grown librarians as well as libraries have had to adapt to the change. I liked how the authors defined what e-libraries and digital libraries are. It makes it clear to those readers who may be unfamiliar or unsure of the definitions of these terms.  I think that this article is a great resource for those who are interested in e-libraries and digital libraries. The steps that they give for developing an e-library and defining the patron base are logical. I found this to be an insightful article.