[Eril-l] funding for DDA/PDA

[Crawford, Laurel]

We also decided to stop allocating by subject area because the thorny issues of DDA were making it very complex. Counting DDA purchases and loans toward a certain subject fund was ridiculously complex to track and penalized one set of disciplines (those with high DDA use). Setting aside special DDA funding penalized another set of disciplines (those who didn’t use or have access to many DDA ebooks). We have since decided to use the “one big pot of money” model to fund one-time purchases.

Once we realized that access was more important to us than ownership to us, we created an Access-Based Collection Development philosophy—you can read our white paper here: http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc335286/.  DDA and other access-based models focus the collection on today’s user, rather than planning for a someday user. We also re-envisioned our collections as a service to today’s user, rather than an assemblage of items that continues to build up over time.

I think some librarians in our institution were more enthusiastic than others about our move toward DDA, but we asked for their input early on in the decision-making process. Our emphasis on service and the needs of today’s users resonated with many of our public-facing colleagues. While many librarians feel relieved about the lack of pressure to spend, others still do lots of requesting—we’re happy to add those items to the DDA program manually and eventually use those selections to tweak the profile.

We have also found that the DDA program, even when the profile is very broad, does not use as much money as we anticipated. If you begin relying more heavily on DDA, you’ll want to analyze the use data to determine what disciplines aren’t well-served…for us Art and Music have a lot of needs not filled by DDA.

Laurel Sammonds Crawford
Coordinator of Collection Development
University of North Texas Libraries
laurel.crawford at unt.edu<mailto:laurel.crawford at unt.edu>
(940) 565 - 2762


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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