[Eril-l] funding for DDA/PDA

Fri Sep 25 13:06:24 PDT 2015

I sent this discussion to my library director and he encouraged me to share our strategy.  Due to time constraints, this is not as refined as I would have liked to have submitted - any questions, please email me directly.

Several years ago, after participating in a webinar, the veil was lifted.

Our library has been, and still does, commit to allocating at the subject level.  However, when e-book purchasing became available, certain subject areas were designated as "e-book first preference".  These areas mostly covered our off-campus programs but there were a few on-campus programs due to librarian preferences.  It was a way for us to start dabbling in purchasing individual titles in addition to the few subscriptions we had purchased.

For the "e-book first preference" subject areas, if there is an e-book available, the e-book would be purchased (unless there was an extreme difference in price - this may happen with textbooks).  I never did the statistics of how many of the librarian chosen titles were available as e-books, but it was significant.

Then the webinar that changed everything.  According to the research, a large research library who presented in the webinar indicated that only 25% of librarian-chosen titles were actually ever used.  And for this reason, this research library switched to investing heavily in PDA titles for their book budget.    The veil lifted - why do we not put our librarian selected titles on PDA instead of purchasing the titles?

So, that is what we did.  We put the e-titles that were initially being purchased on PDA.  We are still in the experimental stage - starting our third year. The first year we funded all the subject areas in our ebrary account with 25% of the actual purchase cost of the titles that were going to be purchased.  Ebrary is not concerned with our allocations to the subject areas, just the total amount on deposit.

The second year, we still continued our PDA process, allocated the 25% of the actual purchase cost to the subject lines internally for library budget reporting, but did not deposit the funds to our ebrary account.  The financial resources that were allocated to the subject lines in the library budget were then re-allocated to other areas in the library or to further extend the collection development budget.  This past year we were able to purchase flat screen TVs in our group study rooms.

Overall, I would say that less than 5% (or most likely lower if I compiled the information) of our titles using this process are purchased.  However, we also have had some cost savings with our ILL department and PDA.  We now put also ebrary titles on PDA instead of purchasing for ILL purposes.  It is interesting that there have been several occasions that a student will not trigger the title to be purchased when a direct link is sent.

Does anyone else use either of these processes for their PDA titles?

From: Eril-l [mailto:eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org] On Behalf Of Melissa Belvadi
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2015 3:18 PM
To: Harker, Karen
Cc: eril-l at lists.eril-l.org<mailto:eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
Subject: Re: [Eril-l] funding for DDA/PDA

Look in the professional literature. I heard a presentation at a Charleston conference a few years ago about a library that took their entire book budget and put it not only in DDA, but exclusively STLs!  That was the year before the publishers started jacking up their STL prices, so I don't know what they're doing now. But it might be worth tracking them down. Sorry I can't remember what institution it was, but I'm thinking in NE US, maybe Vermont?

Melissa

On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 2:58 PM, Harker, Karen <Karen.Harker at unt.edu<mailto:Karen.Harker at unt.edu>> wrote:
I am very interested in studying the effects of this approach - a one-fund, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may model of collection development.  I am beginning to believe that natural selection will closely approximate the true need, thus allowing us to develop a collection that more accurately meets the needs than formal selection methods.  Would anybody whose library has recently or will be soon changing from a subject-based funding or formula model to a single-fund model be interested in collaborating on a study of these effects?

This is just swirling in my mind right now and would likely not actually take shape until the 2016-17 year...but, what I currently envision is a comparison of expenditures, measures of quality collections (e.g. % of titles from university presses, or in OAT or other authoritative lists), and usage (ebook and/or print circulation) by subject before and after the switch.  This kind of study would be fraught with pratfalls pitfalls, but it could provide us with evidence on how these models compare with meeting our users' needs.

Thoughts?

Karen R. Harker, MLS, MPH
Collection Assessment Librarian
Libraries are for Use<http://librariesareforuse.wordpress.com/>
University of North Texas Libraries
1155 Union Circle, #305190
Denton, TX 76203
940-565-4688<tel:940-565-4688>

From: Eril-l [mailto:eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org<mailto:eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org>] On Behalf Of Smith, Kelly
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2015 12:24 PM
To: 'Melissa Belvadi'; 'Katy Ginanni'

Cc: 'eril-l at lists.eril-l.org<mailto:eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>'
Subject: Re: [Eril-l] funding for DDA/PDA

Our philosophy is that if you really want to embrace DDA, you can no longer commit to allocating at the subject level. A few years ago, we stopped allocating for monographs and now only have one large monograph fund. We feared that we might over-spend or not collect in certain areas, but that has not been born out.

In addition to eBook DDA profile programs, we also use demand driven acquisitions for pretty much any resource that is requested via ILL. If requests fit our collecting guidelines, we purchase rather than borrow them.

This approach might not work at every library, but at our regional comprehensive university, it is a good solution for us. In addition to meeting the immediate needs of our students and faculty, it takes the pressure of finding resources off of our liaisons whose time is stretched thin and who are not necessarily specialists in their assigned subjects.

For now, we still assign subject fund codes to everything purchased for tracking purposes.

Kelly Smith
Coordinator of Collections and Discovery
Eastern Kentucky University Libraries
email kelly.smith2 at eku.edu<mailto:kelly.smith2 at eku.edu> | research guides<http://libguides.eku.edu/prf.php?account_id=300>
[cid:image001.jpg at 01D0F7AC.20C87CB0]<http://www.library.eku.edu/>

From: Eril-l [mailto:eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org] On Behalf Of Melissa Belvadi
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2015 12:20 PM
To: Katy Ginanni <ksginanni at email.wcu.edu<mailto:ksginanni at email.wcu.edu>>
Cc: eril-l at lists.eril-l.org<mailto:eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
Subject: Re: [Eril-l] funding for DDA/PDA

Our experience with DDA is that it actually spends far less than everyone fears. So we consider DDA purchases as if the liaisons had firm-ordered them for budget line purposes.  We haven't come anywhere close to the scenario you describe.  If you have to worry about  patrons buying worse choices of books than your liaisons want to select, your DDA profiles are probably too broad.

Melissa Belvadi, UPEI

On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 11:30 AM, Katy Ginanni <ksginanni at email.wcu.edu<mailto:ksginanni at email.wcu.edu>> wrote:
Hi folks,

{Apologies for duplication. I'll post this to several ists.}

I wonder if anyone out there has come up with some magical scheme or prediction or formula for how to allocate subject or program-based funds to pay for DDA/PDA purchases?

When we started our DDA program, we limited the profile to subjects that would support our distance and/or online programs. We paid for all purchases from one fund. Now we are thinking of expanding the DDA plan to cover all programs, and we're wondering how to allocate money from the subject/program-based funds. For print books, we've been experimenting with an allocation formula that includes several criteria or factors (student credit hours per department, # faculty per department, etc.). But we're struggling with how to factor in ebooks. How can we predict what we might spend on ebooks and what we should put aside for print books? For example: Let's say the history department gets $15,000 to spend. Halfway into the year, DDA books have eaten all of that allocation but the liaison still has print books she wants to buy.

Our usage of ebooks - among all purchases, not just the DDA-initiated ones - is spread across many disciplines. That's why we are thinking about putting additional subject areas in our DDA profile.

Thanks in advance for any insight you can provide.

Katy G.

Katy Ginanni, Acquisitions Librarian & Asst Professor
Hunter Library
Western Carolina University
176 Central Drive
Cullowhee, NC 28723
ksginanni at email.wcu.edu<mailto:ksginanni at email.wcu.edu>
828-227-3729<tel:828-227-3729> office
library.wcu.edu<http://library.wcu.edu>

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--
Melissa Belvadi
Collections Librarian
University of Prince Edward Island
mbelvadi at upei.ca<mailto:mbelvadi at upei.ca> 902-566-0581<tel:902-566-0581>

--
Melissa Belvadi
Collections Librarian
University of Prince Edward Island
mbelvadi at upei.ca<mailto:mbelvadi at upei.ca> 902-566-0581

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