[Eril-l] funding for DDA/PDA

Thu Sep 24 11:57:11 PDT 2015

Interesting perspectives in this discussion.

I’d say there is a place for individual selection — a necessary one. And I think it is very important to understand the local context when arguing for a particular perspective over another. So for instance, Luke’s response makes sense in his context but it definitely does not make total sense in mine. And it isn’t just a matter of scale but of other aspects to our local book workflow that make the individually selected books approach still preferable for us, at least for now.

This does not mean that we aren’t actively working on demand-driven acquisitions. In fact, we are actively engaged in it, especially when it comes to journal article pay-per-view but also, to a lesser extent, for some monographs. And we are actively engaged in all aspects of collection assessment.

As for the overarching, big picture aspect to the discussion of whether individual selection is better or worse than demand-driven, and whether or not this is a professional activity (however that is defined), personally, I’m more pragmatic than dogmatic on these issues. I’m leery of hard and fast rules. You do individual selection? That’s bad. You rely on approval plans and DDA? That’s gotta be a good thing. Or vice versa. You are an “older” selector so you must be resistant to change? I find that the reality is much more granular.

Steve

Steve Oberg<http://www.wheaton.edu/Academics/Faculty/O/Steve-Oberg>
Assistant Professor of Library Science
Electronic Resources and Serials
Wheaton College (IL)
+1 (630) 752-5852

From: Eril-l on behalf of "Swindler, Luke"
Date: Thursday, September 24, 2015 at 9:00 AM
To: "eril-l at lists.eril-l.org<mailto:eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>"
Subject: Re: [Eril-l] funding for DDA/PDA

How distressing to hear once again that some librarians still consider ordinary title-by-title book selection to be central to collection development professional responsibility!

At UNC one the first things I tell new subject librarians is the library is not paying them to select books, because the obvious print monographs are being acquired on approval plans or blanket/standing orders, while for e-books en bloc acquisitions by packages or leased collections subscriptions increasingly take care of much of the core with the DDA providing an excellent cost-effective option for problematic titles.

Instead of ordinary and obvious book selection, UNC wants its subject librarians to concentrate their collections time on selecting resources where human intervention and professional judgment actually is needed or specialized knowledge is required as well as on higher-level functions such as helping to develop and revise collection profiles and evaluate acquisitions programs.

Luke Swindler

On Sep 22, 2015, at 3:14 PM, Melissa Belvadi <mbelvadi at upei.ca<mailto:mbelvadi at upei.ca>> wrote:

"...it takes the pressure of finding resources off of our liaisons..."

This raises an interesting professional philosophy issue. About half of our librarians are very happy to have that pressure removed, and the other half, mostly the older half, have expressed the concern that a core part of their professional responsibility and expertise is being disrespected and taken away from them.

You have to admit that the fact that we've jumped on patron-driven selection the moment it became technologically and logistically feasible does implicitly criticize the work the librarians have been doing for literally decades, since we abandoned it as soon as we had another choice.

The conversation becomes even more difficult when trying to present them with hard data, as I have done internally, that demonstrates that about half of the books they selected never circulated at all. They get cornered into making absurd arguments like "it doesn't matter if a book doesn't circulate for 50 years, if I thought it was a good choice, it was a good choice."

Melissa

On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 2:24 PM, Smith, Kelly <Kelly.Smith2 at eku.edu<mailto:Kelly.Smith2 at eku.edu>> wrote:
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
emailkelly.smith2 at eku.edu<mailto:kelly.smith2 at eku.edu>| research guides<http://libguides.eku.edu/prf.php?account_id=300>
<image001.jpg><http://www.library.eku.edu/>

From: Eril-l [mailto:eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org<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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