[Eril-l] DDA pool: disentangling DDA publisher exclusions from high STL charges

[Melissa Belvadi]

I would think that automated removal via the profiles of the books over
certain STL cost criteria (we can debate absolute versus percentage as a
separate issue) would be LESS, not MORE, expensive in terms of "DDA
transactions processing costs" than moving to a system that involves manual
mediation for every request that exceeds those limits.

In general, any time librarians limit ease of access to particular
material, whether it be for cost reasons, collection priorities, or
professional philosophical principles, it works against that primary goal
you articulated. That's just as true when we limit our DDAs to exclude
popular fiction and "Dummies" series types of materials.

I happen to work at an institution where standing firm on "big picture"
ethical principles with widespread and long-term library "industry"
implications is considered a legitimate factor to weigh side by side with
the immediate demand of current patrons.

Thus we disagree that those pricing policy issues need to be prevented from
influencing the exclusion/access issues.

At the same time, I understand that professionals across the spectrum can
agree to disagree in general and in specifics regarding weighing these
principles. These are very difficult decisions for every library management
team to make, and perhaps the reason that we have professional librarians
rather than, as one person suggested to me, turning over library
collections purchases to our university procurement office and doing away
with acquisitions professionals altogether.

Melissa Belvadi, UPEI


On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 4:33 PM, Swindler, Luke <luke_swindler at unc.edu>
wrote:
>
>  Librarians need to disentangle questions about which publishers to
> exclude from concerns about high STL charges—especially in terms of not
> letting the latter unnecessarily influence the former.
>
>  UNC Chapel Hill Libraries chose EBL as its only DDA provider in large
> part precisely because it allows libraries to avoid excessive short-term
> lending charges while offering users a robust array of potentially relevant
> e-books.
>
>  Even excluding e-books with a list price >$250 from the UNC DDA pool,
> STL charges have varied greatly.  For a 24-hour checkout period, they
> ranged from <$1 to >$70 because of wide variances in *both* list price
> *and* publisher STL charges as a % of list price.  Given that 3 STLs
> trigger purchase, UNC *could* incur >$200 in charges before automatically
> buying an e-book, resulting *in an extreme case *in total cost of >$500
> when the purchase price is added to the STL charges.
>
>  UNC faced with three options for eliminating expensive STL charges:
>
>    - • Preemptively remove all publishers that had a STL charge above a
>    specified % of list price;
>    - • Preemptively remove all e-books from the DDA when the STL charge
>    would be in excess of a certain % of list price on an on-going basis
>
>
>    - o Either of these options would not only eliminate titles with low
>    STL charges in absolute dollars but defeat the primary DDA goal to “Improve
>    support for the academic enterprise by presenting faculty and students with
>    a large number of potentially useful and relevant e-book for possible
>    acquisition” as well as add to UNC’s DDA transactions processing costs; or
>
>
>    - • Move to mediated purchase for e-books when STL charge exceeds an
>    absolute amount.
>
>
>  UNC will be implementing a DDA configuration whereby patrons are
> presented with a “Request Library Purchase” button to click if she/he wants
> to continue reading the DDA e-book with a STL cost of over $50 beyond the
> free 5-minute browse period.  The system emails a notice to the Collections
> Management Officer indicating a DDA e-book purchase has been requested.  As
> a rule CMO will automatically approve purchase—and do so as soon a possible
> after getting request.
>
>  Luke Swindler
>
>
>
> *******************************************************************************
> Luke Swindler                               Collections Management Officer
> Davis Library    CB #3918                        luke_swindler at unc.edu
> University of North Carolina                           TEL (919-962-1095)
> Chapel Hill, NC  27514   USA                        FAX (919-962-4450)
>
> *************************************************“*****************************
>  "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most
> intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.” Charles Darwin
>
>
>
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-- 
Melissa Belvadi
Collections Librarian
University of Prince Edward Island
mbelvadi at upei.ca 902-566-0581
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