Purpose -This paper seeks to determine the extent of e-book availability and how existing e-books might meet library needs as defined by monograph circulation. Design/methodology/approach -This study identified highly circulated print titles and searched for e-book versions available from aggregators or publishers. Findings -The results indicate inadequate coverage levels to allow for a discontinuance of print purchasing, but offer clues as to where e-books might have the greatest impact in this library's collection plans. Originality/value -The paper introduces a method whereby libraries may determine where e-book collections best meets user needs.
The authors are grateful to YBP and Coutts for their assistance in data gathering. R ecently, libraries-particularly academic libraries-have been grappling with issues surrounding e-book acquisitions and collection development. Starting as bundled packages with rather restrictive lending models as first promoted by NetLibrary in the late 1990s, e-books have become more patron-friendly through flexible lending arrangements and have become more acquisitions-friendly through single-title offerings. The authors created a research method to identify local users' needs and explored how well currently available e-book content might meet those needs. Using circulation records, interlibrary loan (ILL) requests, and in-houseIn contrast to their swift adoption of e-journals, academic libraries were slow to integrate e-books into the library collections. Barriers to e-book acceptance included libraries' and users' initial unfamiliarity with e-books, slow standardization of e-book technical platforms, lack of a sustainable e-book purchasing model, uncertain circulation policies, and limited discovery and delivery options. Despite these hurdles, the development of e-book collections has emerged as a growing trend among libraries because the new medium provides "added functionality over print versions." 2 This added functionality includes constant availability, remote access, and full-text searching. E-books require no shelf space or reshelving. They can never be lost, stolen, damaged, or overdue. 3In the late 2000s, a breakthrough in creating a viable e-book purchase model became one important motivation for libraries to develop large-scale e-book collections. Print book vendors, working with publishers and e-books aggregators, began to incorporate e-books into their ordering databases. This was a
The authors investigated quantitative methods of collection use analysis employing library data that are available in ILS and ILL systems to better understand library collection use and user needs. For the purpose of the study, the authors extracted circulation and ILL records from the library's systems using data-mining techniques. By comparing these data to records of books acquired in a four-year period, the study reveals generally good collection use as well as some unmet collection needs. The study also offers a method of compiling and sharing these multiple types of usage data among work groups to create feedback mechanisms to inform the work of selectors and suggest modifications to collection development practices.tudying library collection use is an essential part of understanding what user communities need and evaluating how well the collection is meeting those needs. Academic libraries often have undertaken this assessment on a prospective basis by employing subject specialist librarians (either in-house or by proxy through approval plans). These selectors have familiarized themselves with their users' research areas to identify and select what they consider to be the most appropriate materials accordingly. It has not, however, always been clear to what extent such selector-based practices actually satisfy user needs. Coming from a wide range of scholarly and learning interests, some studies have emphasized the importance of use-centered, evidence-based collection evaluation.1 Indeed, as Bodi and Maier-O'Shea suggested, such approaches are even more strategically important to smaller academic libraries that have to develop more selective collections using usage-based approaches because of tight budgets and finite resources.2 Thus, examining evidence of library usage patterns can offer insights into how well-or how poorly-a library's collection is meeting its users' needs and help ensure a return on the investment from the existing resources spent on collection development.The purpose of this paper is to report a study that the authors at The College of New Jersey Library undertook to develop a simple, practical method for evaluating collections in terms of usage patterns. As various library systems now have increasingly sophisticated data-mining capabilities, a wealth of management data surrounding purchasing records, circulation transactions, and interlibrary loan (ILL) requests has
Advances in technology and cooperative structures have had a dramatic effect on the speed of ILL fulfillment for articles, but because of physical limitations, ILL fill speed for monographs has lagged. Having successfully improved ILL fill speed for journal articles by introducing ILLiad and RapidILL, The College of New Jersey Library investigated the possibility of expediting ILL fill for monographs by taking advantage of the speed afforded by ebook fulfillment and the attractive pricing of short-term leases of ebooks. This necessitated an assessment of the scale of ebook equivalents and the creation of new internal workflows in close consultation with our ebook vendor. ARTICLE HISTORY
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