Too Soon To Ditch Print
The uptake of e-journals may have some clues for the e-book future
Francine Fialkoff, Editor -- Library Journal, 5/15/2003
In the brave new electronic world, however, it is much easier for users to influence purchase. "With usage statistics we can tell which are the popular titles," said Sutton. That is one reason she endorses the database concept. "The modern consumer is accustomed to choosing, and it's only natural they'd want to choose from the largest selection of titles."
Sutton replicated the journal database concept in her e-book collection, initiating a "Patron Driven Access" arrangement with netLibrary. While WSU has access to a traditionally purchased netLibrary collection through its consortia, under the new arrangement records for over 16,000 netLibrary academic titles were loaded into the library's online catalog. Users can now browse or check out books from the entire collection, but the library didn't "purchase" the title until at least two users accessed it. The result: the library bought 496 titles over a seven-month period. These titles generated average access of 4.12, in contrast to the consortial netLibrary collection whose use was one-tenth that. Users also browsed or checked out at least once another 1160 titles for which the library was not billed.
While backing the idea of patron-driven selection (a notion commonly ascribed to in public libraries), Sutton's survey points to potentially new electronic pricing and distribution models, including unbundling collections to the article and book level. It also confirms some shibboleths like the 80/20 rule regarding library collections: 20 percent of the titles get somewhere around 80 percent of the use in both the print and electronic world.
Another report on e-use on campus libraries, this one from Amy Friedlander at the Library of Congress, supports the notion that e-use is much higher among faculty and upper-division and graduate students than among those new to academe. Even Sutton acknowledged that mostly scholars, not students, are using Science Direct, since it "is pretty high level." Friedlander noted that "undergraduates are much less likely to experiment with many formats. [They have a] clear preference for books." As students progress up the academic ladder, however, they identify more closely with and model themselves after faculty mentors who read the journal literature, much of it in electronic form. This shift means that academic libraries must maintain both print and digital collections, says Friedlander.
While e-journals are taking over academe, reports like Friedlander's reiterate that there is still too much disparity in user behavior and among academic institutions and disciplines to make any across-the-board prognostications regarding print publications. Sutton's study measured e-journal use by downloads, noting that users still print—presumably to read on paper—numerous articles. And a review of netLibrary's traditional model by, among others, Janis Bandelin, director of university libraries at Furman University, SC, and James Rettig, university librarian at the University of Richmond, VA, concluded that digital books are "well suited to reference works briefly consulted for facts."
The diversity of studies of e-use, and the models they suggest—many of which are being implemented by companies like ebrary, Knovel, and netLibrary—are encouraging. Ultimately, they will result in a real shift that provides more electronic access while preserving the mix of formats that only libraries can deliver so well.
