Micka, Tracy
INFO266, Fall 2016
Swindler, L. l. (2016). New Consortial Model for E-Books Acquisitions. College & Research Libraries, 77(3), 269-285.
Summary:
This article presents a sustainable model for the consortial acquisition of e-books and print titles needed to support multidisciplinary instruction and research. Using the model as a transitional program, the central goal was to shift the balance of monographic acquisitions to e-books over time, on a financially sustainable cost-neutral basis. The idea that ebooks and their print analogs complement one another for educational purposes is the underlying basis of the program.
How can they collectively acquire or share ebooks? Ebook sharing in a consortium is difficult, traditionally resulting in inequitable costs to the institutions involved, as price multipliers create limits to simultaneous access. Publishers, vendors, libraries, and users all have their own needs, some of which directly clash. Three important developments contribute to such difficulties: 1) changes in the means by which research libraries build collections; 2) eResources vastly expand the scale of a collection; 3) new metrics in measuring cooperative collection development in a digital environment (ILL doesn’t work for ebooks ).
One of the main principles for the model was to widely purchase multiple copies of ebooks, but limit print books to a single copy of a limited number of titles. Print books are stored offsite, and individual institutions have their own copies of eBooks. This acquisition mandate turned on its head the traditional notion of a successful shared collection as one that has a massive amount of unique titles. Since this new program is predicated on committing to automatically purchase the entire (monographic) output of participating publishers, success is measured by how efficiently money is spent to ensure each member institution can provide its users with immediate and unfettered access at a scale that would not be possible without the consortium. In this way, success is no longer measured by how many unique titles, but by how extensively titles have been duplicated within the consortium. Such metrics are based on the Association of Research Libraries’ call to think of collections as components instead of products (p. 273). As a result, the focus shifts from title-by-title purchasing decisions by individual subject librarians to wholesale block purchases dictated by policy-level decisions. Book vendors become critical partners for helping the consortium understand which publishers would work for their goals and for establishing new ways of sourcing, acquiring and processing ebooks and print books in tandem on a wholesale acquisition basis.
Problems encountered in the pilot program were numerous, and included:
- Failure to take full advantage of the book vendor’s profiling capabilities when deciding which print books were the most important to purchase
- Resource delivery mechanisms
- eBook platform response time
- Not always clear when print or eBooks had arrived / were available
Librarian & Patron Response
Interestingly, although patrons tend to report that they prefer physical books over ebooks, it was the librarians who tended to be more cautious / reluctant to duplicate eBooks. This is likely because users have come to expect instant access, and ebooks deliver this. Also, eBooks are a quick way for patrons to scope out if the title is even of interest, before having to go though the process of ordering the (off-site) print copy.
Shifting to eBooks is thus possible and acceptable, especially when you continue to purchase high-visibility/high-use titles and enable on-demand acquisition of print duplicates. Doing so through consortial cooperative collection development programs is also possible, with the following advice:
- Understand how your patrons use eBooks, the devil of purchasing decisions is in the details, remain flexible.
- The eBook publishing environment is unpredictable and evolving- again, remain flexible and willing to experiment
- Individual institutions will have to compromise sometimes in order to preserve the value of the consortium
- Librarians, publishers and vendors will have to to communicate with each other often and well
- Librarians will have to invest time in educating staff and developing new metrics
My comments:
The basic ideas of this article are very instructive, though without a working background in acquisitions and only a basic understanding of the modern publishing environment, many of details are lost. The take-home is important, though: the program allowed the consortium to “bypass the perennial format fetish debates about e-books versus print books” (p 280), supporting what previous research has already found- that it’s a false dichotomy. The pilot program proved that what patrons say they prefer (physical books) and what they will come to accept and learn to use (ebooks), are two different things. It’s a whole new world- patrons, librarians, publishers and vendors are all adapting dynamically. The old paradigm has been shattered, so examples like this pilot program help us envision a new way forward.
