Patron Driven Acquisition Project

Mieko Yamaguchi – Bangor University

What is PDA / DDA?

• A new model of purchasing solely based on user demand– Just in time

• Traditional purchasing model– Just in case

Why PDA?

• Only buy e-books that users want• Don’t buy e-books nobody uses• Students can decide what to buy for the

library – not lecturers or librarians• Build up a critical mass of e-books

available via the library • Wider selection of reading material than

the library can hold

What did we try to solve?

PDA at Bangor

• Working with Ebook Library (EBL)• First trial

– October 2010 – February 2011– Ended when money ran out!

• Second trial– October 2011 – ?– Until money runs out!!

How PDA works

• Loaded 80k MARC records from EBL• Selected from 200k+ titles based on

publisher, date, language, price• Users don’t know these e-books are not

owned by the library… yet• First 3 uses treated as short term loans• 4th access triggers a purchase

PDA at Bangor

• E-books are clearly marked in the catalogue

• Access is not mediated• After 5 mins of free browsing users are

asked if they want to continue• After confirming users have access to the

e-book for 24 hours• Unlimited simultaneous use (almost)

Some early findings

• Purchased 541 e-books through PDA in 12 months

• 1/3 of e-books bought through PDA are titles we already hold in print

• 10% of e-books bought through PDA are recommended course reading material

E-book is more cost effective

• 5 print copies bought at £102.78– Checked out 12 times this academic year– Checked out 30 times last academic year

• E-book outright purchase at £27.62– Accessed 66 times this academic year– Accessed 199 times last academic year– 3 x short term loans + purchase today would

have cost £56.60

PDA pricing

• Purchase e-book at list price + VAT• Short term loan : 5~20% of list price• PDA purchase = 115~160% of list price• If 1 or 2 uses pay 5~40% of list price• Pay nothing if a title is not used

Auto-purchased e-books

• Used more often than e-books bought before PDA

• Between October 2010 & September 2011– Average unique access to auto-purchased

titles : 16.3– Average unique access to already owned

titles : 4.8

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PDA vs outright purchase

• Estimated cost if all titles accessed were purchased upfront : £404,385

• Estimated cost if all titles accessed more than 5 mins were purchased : £229,318

• Actual PDA expenditure £69,303• Average short term loan cost : £5.97 • Average cost of auto-purchase : £52.17

Challenges

• How to manage demand• Supplementary selection method• Sustainable PDA model?• Consortium arrangement?• Should we mediate more?• PDA of e-books is here to stay• Enhance student experience!