Patron-Driven Acquisition
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Doyle: Patron-Driven Acquisition Patron-Driven Acquisition – Working Collaboratively in a Consortial Environment: An Interview with Greg Doyle Greg Doyle ([email protected]) Electronic Resources Program Manager, Orbis Cascade Alliance Cory Tucker ([email protected]) “From the Field” Section Editor Abstract Patron-driven acquisition models for electronic and print books have become extremely popular in the past two years and in most cases this service has been implemented at many individual libraries. One unique collaborative model of patron-driven acquisition was created by the Orbis Cascade Alliance through a partnership with Ebook Library (EBL) and Yankee Book Peddler (YBP). This unique project is an example of libraries, consortia, and vendors working together to develop new business models during times of financial constraint, where libraries and consortia are exploring various “just-in-time” acquisi- tion models. Collaborative Librarianship spoke with Greg Doyle about the project at Orbis Cascade. Keywords: Patron-Driven Acquisition; Consortia Greg Doyle is the Electronic Resources Program CL: What types of services do you provide to Manager at the Orbis Cascade Alliance. Prior to libraries? joining the Orbis Cascade, Greg was the Elec- tronic Resources Librarian for Multnomah Doyle: The Alliance provides a number of ser- County Library and a Network Train- vices that support cooperative collection devel- er/Account Representative for OCLC. He re- opment, leveraging resources and resource shar- ceived his B.A. in Journalism from Humboldt ing. For example, Summit, is our system that State University and his M.L.I.S. degree from the allows students, faculty and staff to easily search University of Oregon. and request library materials owned by member libraries; a courier service offering delivery of *** library materials in Oregon, Washington and Idaho; the Northwest Digital Archives, offering CL: Please provide some information on the enhanced access to primary sources in the Orbis Cascade Alliance. Northwest US; cooperative purchasing of data- bases, ebooks and ejournals, and other digital Doyle: The Orbis Cascade Alliance is a consor- library services. In all, Orbis Cascade serves tium of 37 academic libraries in Oregon, Wash- more than 280 libraries, museums, archives, and ington, and Idaho serving faculty and the equiv- historical societies in seven western states that alent of more than 235,000 full time students. participate in some or all of our services. Orbis started with seven libraries in 1993 and 13 libraries were added up to 2002, when Orbis and CL: Collaboration among libraries can be chal- Cascade (7 public academic institutions in lenging, due to different needs or different dis- Washington) merged together to form the Orbis cipline focus. How has Orbis Cascade overcome Cascade Alliance. Additional members have these challenges? joined since the merger, with the most recent member library, University of Idaho, joining in Doyle: Member libraries have a strong culture December 2011. of working together to enhance services to their user communities. Libraries in the Pacific Northwest have never had enough resources to Collaborative Librarianship 3(4):212-216 (2011) 212 Doyle: Patron-Driven Acquisition do everything they want to do. Member libra- • Leverage our existing relationship with YBP ries have always seen the advantages of work- • Ensure access to purchased titles by all ing with each other, sharing the expertise of members their staff and information resources to collabo- • Develop a funding model to support the rate on projects. The result is often services pro- program vided at the network level that allow member • Use the expertise of staff in member libraries libraries to best deploy their staff to serve their to support the selection of materials and ca- unique patrons. taloging and processing of the collections CL: Recently, Orbis Cascade implemented a The new Ebook Team began working in 2010. consortium-wide electronic book patron-driven They identified possible models for consortial acquisition project. How did this project get ebook purchasing and surveyed our Collection started? Development and Management Committee to gauge their interest in the models. Based on Doyle: Orbis Cascade Alliance has a strong re- their responses, the team drafted and RFI and source sharing history with the Summit union sent it out to selected publishers and Ebook ag- catalog, patron requesting and the ability to gregators. In the end, the Team recommended a move materials around the system with the Demand Driven Pilot with partners EBL and courier program that we manage. The Alliance YBP. Council adopted this Collection Development Vision Statement in 2007: The Team thought the Demand Driven ap- proach would minimize the efforts to select ma- “As an Alliance, we consider the com- terials. Secondly, we wanted to ensure that we bined collections of member institutions would be paying only for titles that demonstrat- as one collection. While member institu- ed actual use. Finally, we thought the variety of tions continue to acquire their own ma- titles would provide support for the curriculum terial, the Alliance is committed to co- of our members. operative collection development to le- verage member institutions’ resources to Council approved the recommendation, includ- better serve our users.” ing a mandate that all member libraries partici- pate by providing a share of the funding needed Our Electronic Resources program, while ro- for the Pilot. This was the first time member bust, has always operated on an opt-in basis. libraries were expected to participate in an e- Ebook proposals would come through the ER resource effort. Program, but we were mostly not successful in gathering enough commitments to purchase CL: Funding collaborative projects can be chal- ebooks that would be accessible by all the mem- lenging, especially in this economic environ- ber libraries. Libraries were beginning to pur- ment. How was this project funded? Did the chase ebooks, but licensing restrictions or simp- participating libraries feel the project was ly the ability to efficiently share the materials funded equitably? restricted resource sharing. Doyle: The important piece was the Council In 2009 the Council of library directors called for decision that all member libraries participate in the formation of an Ebook Task Force to explore funding the pilot. The Ebook Team grappled ways to pursue consortial ebook purchasing with the funding model as they were essentially with the goal of providing access to the content operating in the dark. We were the first group by all Alliance member libraries. The Task of this size (FTE pool of 235,000) doing a De- Force’s report, adopted by Council, led to the mand Driven Pilot. EBL provided a lot of usage formation of a new Ebook Team that would fo- stats and perspectives, but all of that was based cus on the specifics found in the previous team’s on individual library activity. recommendations: Collaborative Librarianship 3(4):212-216 (2011) 213 Doyle: Patron-Driven Acquisition As a starting point, we decided to collect ap- It was important that EBL and YBP could work proximately $1/FTE for an expected six month together and we’ve found them both to be very pilot. The $231,000 was allocated out to all 36 responsive and supportive of the pilot. In fact, libraries on an FTE basis: representatives from both companies attend our meetings and have provided assistance $2500: community colleges throughout the pilot. $5000: 1-4000 FTE $7000: 4001-8000 FTE CL: How are you assessing the impact of the $10000: 8001 – 17000 FTE program for the consortia, as well as specific $15000: 17,001 + FTE members? The Team made it clear that this was the model Doyle: We have a formal evaluation plan that for the pilot and that if it is going to be extended can be viewed here: beyond the pilot phase into something more permanent, continued funding would take into http://www.orbiscascade.org/index/cms- account usage among other factors. filesystem-action/collection_development/dda- faq-12-13-11.doc No doubt there was some skepticism about the value of the pilot by some libraries. Our evalua- In short we will be using usage reports, includ- tion process will include a Return on Investment ing drilling to down to individual library use; that compares the total of the list price of titles usage of purchased titles by number and type of accessed by users of an institution to the amount libraries; discovery and issues related to record of their contribution. quality; and library ROI. CL: The Patron-driven electronic book project CL: Give us an update on how the program is involved some vendors. How did the collabora- working. Any unforeseen challenges? tion with vendors come about and what process did you use to select the vendors? Doyle: We started very conservatively with on- ly 1700 titles in the initial load in July. The pool Doyle: YBP has been our preferred monograph- was limited by the number of publishers that ic vendor since they were identified after our agreed to participate and that we limited titles to Collection Development and Management 2011 e-imprints. Usage was low and by mid- Committee issued an RFI in 2007. We encourage September we had only spent 4% of our budget our member libraries to do their monographic and had not purchased a single title. The Im- selection through YBP so each library has a pic- plementation Team met in September and de- ture of the activity by all members at the point of cided to increase usage in two ways: 1) lower acquisition. If several copies are already pur- the trigger to purchase from 10 Short Term chased, the library can decide to use their funds Loans to 5 STLs and 2) add titles with e-imprint to purchase something else. The initial Ebook dates of 2009 and 2010, recognizing there would Task Force saw value in leveraging our relation- be some duplication of titles already purchased ship with YBP and encouraged the next team to by members in either print or electronic formats.