Rethinking Monographic Acquisitions in a Large Academic Library: Challenges and Benefits

Rethinking Monographic Acquisitions in a Large Academic

Library: Challenges and Benefits

Trish Chatterley and Denise Koufogiannakis

About the University of Alberta

Central funding of publisher ebook packages

Occasional patron-driven acquisition pilot projects -

nothing continual

Unit libraries

○ Purchase of discipline-specific ebook packages

○ Small numbers of print books sent on approval

○ Some standing orders for series

○ Most purchases via title-by-title selection & ordering by subject

librarians. Slips sent via Ingram Coutts, YBP, Harrasowitz, etc.

Background - our old mono model

Why the Need for Change?

Trying to be fiscally responsible

Reduction in number of staff

Increased workloads for liaison librarians due to

introduction of new areas of service focus (eg.

Research Data Management)

Good time to implement change, as UAL

transitioned to a new preferred English-language

monograph vendor

English

Language

Monograph

Ordering at

UAL

Patron-DrivenAcquisitions

Ebooks on Approval

Interdisciplinary are funded centrally, subject specific are

funded by units

Central Budget

Publisher Ebook

Packages

Firm orders (no slips)

Those publishers excluded from all Coutts profiles

Print Books on Approval

Unit Budgets

Unit Budgets

Unit Budgets

Approval ≠ Slip

Implementation Timeline

Dec. 2013 - Began communication with staff about

new mono ordering model that doesn’t include

liaison selection

Feb. 2014 - Ingram Coutts announced as our

preferred English-language monograph provider,

subsequent to RFP process

Mid-March 2014 - Met with Ingram Coutts to prepare

subject profiles

April 2014 - Central firm order form initiated

Implementation Timeline, continued

May 2014 - Most unit library approval plans went live

July 2014 - Began assessment with review of

exclusion lists

Present - Continue to meet with Coutts reps as

problems arise

Present - Continue to assess what is coming on the

plans

19,243 books purchased from Coutts as of March

31, 2015

1,079 purchases triggered on PDA (~9.5% of titles

loaded)

14,519 shipped on approval plans (866 ebook; 13,653

print)

3,645 firm orders (819 ebook; 2,826 print)

Total cost: 1,255,953.94CAD

71% print purchases vs. 29% ebook purchases

How it worked - 2014/2015 fiscal

Orders outside of Coutts

● ~534 titles firm ordered via credit card (includes books, CDs,

DVDs)

● Only 75 YBP purchases (eg. Wiley ebooks pre-2014 on Wiley

platform)

● Some other purchases through direct to publisher invoicing

Overall

● 985,502 CAD left in unit libraries’ mono accounts at year-end

● Approximately 3 million spent on monos out of 4 million

budgeted; extra money compensated for increased serial

costs due to the drop in the CAD

How it worked - 2014/2015 fiscal

Comparison to Last Year

Format 2013/14 2014/2015

YBP 1,397,729 CAD 16,967 CAD

Coutts 671,598 CAD 1,255,953 CAD

Total 2,069,327 CAD 1,272,920 CAD

Mono spending across the two vendors

reduced by almost $800,000

Impact & Challenges

On budget

On staff roles

On the collection

On the user community

On the library-vendor relationship

Next steps

Continue to assess the plans, and make

modifications as needed

Ongoing documentation of workflow processes

Consider moving foreign language materials to

central firm ordering?

Collection Structures Working Group to recommend

overarching collections structure for UAL

Thank You!

Questions?

[email protected]

[email protected]