Are E-Book Big Deal Bundles Still Valuable?

Abstract

The academic e-book market has undergone significant change in the last five years. E-book availability has greatly increased as library demand has grown, with an increasing percentage of library acquisitions preferring electronic rather than print format. E-book acquisition models like patron-driven acquisition and short-term loan have now become commonplace and available from a multitude of consortia, publishers, and aggregators. With the wide availability of these models, is there still value in buying e-books through package deals?To help answer this question, we will present the results of a usage-based analysis of Wiley e-books. Since 2012, Miami University Libraries have purchased Wiley e-book collections through a consortial OhioLINK contract. Previously purchased OhioLINK e-book collections have been accessible to patrons through both OhioLINK's Electronic Book Center platform and the publisher platform. The Wiley e-book purchase deviates from previous practice by being available to patrons only on the publisher platform and our analysis is therefore focused on COUNTER e-book usage reports from the Wiley platform. We also augment the usage data with title-level information, such as subject and book type. This preliminary study focuses on the 2012 Wiley collection and its use over a three-year period (2012)(2013)(2014) and will include data-driven findings presented in visually useful ways.