Barbara Fister, Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN Nov 11, 2010
Photo by Debora Miller
Okay, this is going to make me unpopular: I think patron-driven ebook acquisitions for an academic library is a terrible idea. There, I said it.
I may have to eat my words. I sometimes balk at trends, only to change my mind. I thought patron tagging in online catalogs was a silly notion. I didn't buy the claims that ontology is overrated, that cataloging is useless (I think it's only semi-useless) and that users want to create their own categories and schemes of meaning (when in my experience all they really want is to find some books, preferably as quickly as possible).
That was then. Now I want LibraryThing for Libraries like a kid who's petitioning Santa for the hot toy of the season. I didn't think our patrons would add tags (and now that our catalog has the option, sure enough-they don't) but importing relevant tags from the 65 million contributed by LibraryThing users like me would actually make our materials easier to find, and we would not lose the benefits of the controlled vocabulary of traditional cataloging. My only question is whether the added functionality in the catalog is worth the money that would probably have to come from the book budget, since we've cut periodicals and databases to the bone. When you have more avenues to discover books, but have no new books to discover, you're on the horns of a dilemma.
A passion for patron-driven Maybe I will change my mind, but right now I'm digging in my heels once again. In recent months I have talked to librarians who are evangelists for letting patrons spend our acquisitions budget based on how many clicks a particular title gets in a shopping mall of ebooks. I should add that these librarians are already convinced that ebooks are where our acquisitions budget should go. But it's not clear to me if that's a conviction shared by their patrons. It seems to be a prediction combined with an assumption: this is what people will want as soon as they wake up to the new reality.
A major thrust of the argument is that it's foolish to try to guess what books people will want in advance when you can virtually put a huge range of options on your shelves and let students and faculty pluck off the ones they want. The percentage of books that grow old without ever leaving the library's shelves is troubling, and this method of selection is a way to ensure that our dollars go to materials that are actually used. And once we work out the wrinkles, it will save us so much time and money and space.
Vendors are coming on board. Yankee Book Peddler has announced a partnership with Ebook Library to merge patron-driven acquisitions with approval plans. (Their press release is a marvelous bowl of alphabet soup: "When a book fits the rules for a DDA [demand-driven acquisition] title, YBP alerts EBL, and EBL delivers a URL that goes into the bibliographic record. YBP sends the records to the library, which puts them in the OPAC." Did you catch all that?)
There's a practical side to all this that is appealing. But a library is more than a shopping site built to satisfy immediate patron needs. A well-chosen collection is a cartography of knowledge that helps guide the novice researcher toward books that they would never think to ask for. Patron-driven acquisition puts an enormous amount of faith in catalogs. With all due respect, they work pretty well when you know what you're looking for, but I have yet to meet the metadata that is better than what cataloging and classification can provide in combination.
Umberto Eco, who argued for library coffee shops decades before they became trendy, said at the opening of a new library in Milan that "the whole idea of a library is based on a misunderstanding: that the reader goes into the library to find a book whose title he knows." Its real purpose, he said, "is to discover books of whose existence the reader has no idea." For him, open stacks were a triumph. When libraries turn to ebooks, browsing will be circumscribed by the cleverness of your interface and the dimensions of your computer screen.
The consumable library Supplying books that patrons (or should I say "customers"?) order from a catalog of possibilities alters the fundamental nature of libraries. The library is not a mall where individuals select the goods they plan to consume, like groceries or shoes. It's a commons, a resource for the entire community furnished with books that can be shared amongst ourselves and beyond local boundaries so that, by pooling our library holdings, we all can accommodate the unanticipated and occasional need. Sharing among libraries is something that most ebooks don't allow. And building a collection for the future seems to be a thing of the past.
This move toward patron-driven ebook acquisition continues the trajectory set by purchasing articles on demand to avoid subscribing to journals at a ruinous price. This doesn't solve the problem. It simply provides a temporary fix, applying market logic to a system that evades market corrections. People who would never shell out $30 for an article that may or may not be useful are content with those prices-so long as the library picks up the tab. The trend to view libraries as merely the purchaser of intellectual property raises the question of why we should invest in libraries and library staff when our function is merely to handle bills for consumables?
Finding a balance In spite of all the hype, I suspect the future will occupy some middle ground. We will likely set aside some funding to purchase ebooks chosen by clicks, but retain a substantial portion of our budgets for choices made by subject specialists inside and outside the library. We probably will insist on some means of sharing materials, even if publishers resist; one way to do that, open access publishing of monographs, is an area of increasing interest.
Beyond that, it's worth acknowledging patrons have driven acquisitions for decades. We seek suggestions, pay attention to the subjects that are most in demand, check in with faculty about new courses and programs, and catch items requested through interlibrary loan that are likely to be used repeatedly. When a student or faculty member recommends a book, we almost always buy it. It's how we've always done things.
PDA is hardly a new model, it's just getting a new coat of paint. Used in moderation, it can help fill in some gaps. But used exclusively, which is where many administrators are headed, even if they won't admit it, it just turns libraries into Amazon clones and further pushes the library into a marginal existence as a purchasing agent. And it turns a collection into a swiss cheese of miscellany that was once of interest to somebody, allegedly, but of no real use to anyone in the long run.
Surely all of the PDA kool-aid drinkers must realize they are also laying the groundwork for their own eventual layoffs. Once you outsource collection development, acquisitions, metadata, and discovery, what exactly is left for librarians to do? Instruction? Give me a break.
Posted by Alky Briggs on November 11, 2010 04:39:44PM
I think it's important to note that any 'patron-driven acquisition' program is
library selection. That is to say, most libraries using some form of patron-
dirven acquisition first pick and choose the titles their patrons will see. At
EBL, we have always called our program a demand-driven acquisition
program. You may think this is just a matter of semantics or marketing spin,
but we think it is an important differentiation. We've had libraries using
different variations of our demand-driven acquisition tools for many years
now and nearly all of them pre-select the titles that are made available in the
patron interface. The most cautious ones will hand select the individuals
titles (as they would in a 'normal' acquisition workflow), the more liberal
libraries will use a customised profile (either set-up with EBL or now through
YBP) to identify the titles. In either scenario, libraries are using methods they
have always used to select titles. Turning on titles using a profile is no
different than using an approval plan to select titles (something which has
gained widespread acceptance over the years). The difference is that in a
'demand-driven acquisition' program, libraries only have to pay for titles if
they get used. How can that be a step backward? Imagine if you could send
back your print books to your supplier after a few years after you discover
they don't circulate?! A wisely-planned, wisely-administered DDA program is
not akin to opening Amazon to your patrons, it is about ensuring 100% return
on investment...only paying for titles that your patrons actually use. In this
model, libraries don't have to make a single title available to their patrons that
they haven't first selected themselves.
Posted by Kari Paulson on November 11, 2010 05:16:14PM
Good point that the contents of the package are filtered to reflect the library's interests, but purchasing based on casual use driven by term paper topics seems ... I don't know, not necessarily the best way to select a collection. But then, my library is small and we don't use approval plans.
I'm also an e-book skeptic, and probably will be until our users show more interest in them, and I'm not happy that if I buy an e-book I probably won't be able to share it with other libraries.
In general I don't have an issue with vendors who are working hard to meet the expressed needs of their market; I'm really taking issue with the librarians who are so totally sold on this as THE future.
Posted by Barbara Fister on November 11, 2010 10:23:24PM
One approach (and the one we have followed at Univ of Texas) is for a library to create a profile of books that we librarians wished we could have afforded if the budget were bigger, and then let the users select from this group. At the same time we continue to balance the user selections with titles chosen by librarians who are paid to keep up with developments in the field. When you do this, one of the things you discover is that users are frequently better informed about emerging areas of research on campus, better informed about changes in program direction and focus, and that someone (faculty?) are buying books in new areas where one semester later, we suddenly wake up and discover that there are new classes being taught. Demand Driven acquisitions are a good way to make sure that we haven't accidentally locked the door to the ivory tower by assuming that we librarians always know best. Sometimes library users (faculty and students) have a great deal to contribute to the library, and frankly, we welcome their help in making our library the best it can be.
Posted by Dennis Dillon on November 12, 2010 04:39:38PM
While the absolute adoption of PDA does seem extreme, why wouldn't libraries embrace this as part of an acquisition mix?
The posters above raise very good points; how can ending up with books that people want to read be a bad thing? And certainly, the library has the final say. (For better or worse; I'm thinking of Time Magazine's selection of Mark Zuckerberg as Person of the Year despite Julian Assange getting almost 20 times as many votes from readers).
But this touches on another area where libraries are struggling; Marketing. PDA is an excellent engagement tool to get patrons involved with their library and I suggest a very cost-effective one compared to advertising and other promotional activities.
If I can be self-serving for a minute, the fact is that highly engaged patrons are more likely to raise a ruckus if we need them to when municipal budgets are announced. We need to losen the reins a little bit and let the patrons in to increase their engagement and commitment. It won't hurt. I promise.
Posted by Peter Atkinson on December 23, 2010 06:55:56AM
Barbara,
You point out some interesting aspects and you bring to light some of the
challenges out there as well. That being can a company like YBP present a
system and option to you without the runaround. One item that I think Kari
might have touched on is that you have the ability to limit the spending of
your acquisitions budget on the admin side of things. You can be notified of
an eBook that is about to be bought if over a certain amount.
EBL's model and other eBook aggregators have their place, just like any other
model for acquisition or collection development. I've represented all of the
major eBook aggregators out there and that was always my first comment,
not all of these systems fit your needs, you need to understand how they each
work and ask a ton of questions. The alphabet soup as you put it by some
companies is enough to make you want to run and hide.
As with any service there is a place for it, if it doesn't fit yours, then I say don't
do it. You can always trial these setups and this model from EBL or others,
give it a shot and mess with it. If it doesn't work, don't implement it. I do see
your concerns as many do and it comes down to some simple solutions as
well. You need sales reps or someone representing this knowing what they
are talking about and understanding the libraries needs and challenges, not
just someone selling it to you.
Posted by Erik Christopher on February 8, 2011 09:47:51AM
