Synthesis

=Synthesis of related work=

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We used employing desk research to summarise motivation and metadata issues from recent formally and informally published work, significant blogs and other information feeds. This included the work of members of our project team.
 * **Work** || **Why is it relevant to our work?** ||
 * A Proposal to Improve and Expand Access to Electronic Resources through Per-Use Pricing. By Peter McCracken Against the Grian v23 #5. December 5, 2011

From the article:

An “a-la-carte,” or pay-per-use, approach to selected electronic resources, would be a great boon to both library budgets and the patrons they serve. A library might feel that a certain database is not particularly useful, or feel they are paying more than the database is worth to them, but don’t want to lose it completely; consider, for example, a database that’s being purchased solely to appease one or two faculty members’ egos. Pay-per-use access allows this, across many different databases, while freeing up funds for more efficient use.

The rapid introduction of Web-scale discovery layers, such as Serials Solutions’ Summon,1 EBSCO’s EBSCO Discovery Service, Ex Libris’ Primo Central, OCLC’s WorldCat Local, and others, provides the perfect layer for applying an a la carte approach across large swaths of data. All of the pieces of technology are available to make this work; all that’s needed is some modifications to administrative interfaces in discovery layers, some additional data tracking and reporting, and most importantly, a willingness among libraries and content providers to try something new.

What is necessary for this to happen? Discovery layers must build administrative tools that allow them to track PPV and PPC statistics and fees for each database in their collection, track which databases are managed in what fashion by library, track discounts offered by content providers to libraries, bill libraries for usage on a monthly or quarterly basis and distribute funds to content providers on a similar schedule, and much more. || Impact of Discovery services..they could lead to changes in ebook PDA aproaches.

Ebook metadata could be managed by the Discovery service rather that the library catalogue ||
 * E-Book Annotation Sharing and Social Reading - National Information Standards Organization September 2011

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the Internet Archive are hosting two meetings on the topic of Standards Development for E-Book Annotation Sharing and Social Reading with the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. These meetings will be held in conjunction with the Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, and the Books In Browsers Meeting in San Francisco. Both meetings will be held in October 2011 on the 10th and 26th respectively. || 'Social metadata' as evaluative metadata || of E-Books. By Karen S. Fischer, Michael Wright, Hope Barton, Edward Shreeves. College & Research Libraries (accepted September 2011 -for (anticipated) publication March 2012)
 * Give ‘em What They Want: A One-year Study of Unmediated Patron-Driven Acquisition

In September 2009 the University of Iowa Libraries embarked on an experiment with patron driven acquisition (PDA) of e-books with ebrary and YBP. An e-book-only PDA plan was initiated, entirely unmediated and with instantaneous access to the content. MARC records were loaded for each title, determined by our YBP approval profile and other limitations, for a total of 12,000 PDA records. Usage, cost, subject, and publisher data were analyzed for 850 purchased PDA e-books and thousands of other ebrary subscription titles. Results indicate that PDA can be a useful and effective tool for meeting user needs and building the local collection, but the role of PDA in the library’s collection management program presents challenges as well as opportunities. ||  ||
 * 'Drinking the E-book Kool-Aid in a Large Academic Library.' By Wendy Allen Shelburne, Electronic Resources Librarian, Acting Head of Acquisitions, and Associate Professor of Library Administration at University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign

Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) Spring 2011 Volume 23, Issue 2. Special Issue: Views of the E-book Renaissance

MARC, Metadata, and Why Isn’t It in the OPAC Yet?

After models, I suspect the next challenge with e-books is MARC records and managing discovery. From who makes them to where do we get them and ending with the never-ending discussion about quality, it seems that no one, even if they tried, could come up with a harder thing to do relative to e-books. Given that there is now access to electronic abstracts for books, and frankly more metadata than we ever dreamed of relative to book publishing, are we really going to continue with the MARC record as the gold standard of access to an e-book? It is unfathomable to me that almost nine years after Roy Tennant declared “MARC Must Die” I am still trying to figure out why it is so hard to load the MARC records for the e-books, and am now also watching the growing e-book cataloging backlog that might ultimately match those cataloging backlogs of print, which never quite seem to completely go away. It is also patently clear to me that it is a good thing I decided not to pursue a career in cataloging, as I obviously would have been really bad at it. Further, I have to say that I remain very worried that link resolvers and associated electronic resource management knowledgebases and tools will never truly match what is needed to manage e-books because we remain forever tied to MARC, and still somehow lack the ability to rethink not only how we buy these materials but how we provide access to them. Seriously, did we not learn anything at all from e-journals? || Interesting comments on MARC records and ebooks (see left) ||
 * June issue of **'Against the grain'** is focussed on PDA Several articles

'A publisher's perspective on PDA' by Rebecca Seger and Lenny Allen for OUP has this to say ***specifically* on metadata.** 'In a demand driven world, the publishers who will have the most successful transition are the ones who do their utmost to ensure their content is being "driven to" at all points of the research spectrum. **Discoverability through enhanced metadata is of key importance** and it is truly up to publisher to drive discoverability of their books' || highlights the importance of metadata for discovery and places responsibility on publishers || University of California Libraries. May 2011 From the report: Findings related to specific e-book functionalities:
 * [|UC Libraries Academic e-Book Usage Survey] Springer e-Book Pilot Project
 * The ability to search within and across e-book content is identified as the primary advantage of e-books, regardless of whether a respondent prefers print book or e-books.
 * Annotating and highlighting within the e-book environment is perceived as vital to the majority of respondents who use academic e-books. For those indicating a preference for print books, dissatisfaction with e-book annotation tools is frequently mentioned as a stumbling block to e-book adoption.
 * The ability to download the entire e-book to a device for later use is a highly valued feature. Respondents expressed frustration with those e-book vendors that restrict downloading or printing to chapters or other pre-defined sections.
 * The dedicated e-book reader, such as the Kindle, and mobile devices, such as the iPhone, offer significant advantage over the personal computer as well as the print book for a noteworthy number of respondents.

Springer e-book usage is impacted by both university status and area of study or research. Postdoctoral researchers were most likely to have used Springer e-books (51%), followed closely by graduate students (49%), faculty and lecturers (32%), and undergraduate students (20%). Respondents in the physical sciences and engineering reported the highest use of Springer e-books (62%), followed by life and health sciences (39%), social sciences (32%), business and law (18%), and arts and humanities (17%). || Post graduate use higher than UG

Discovery: e-book users are most likely to discover e-books through 1) the library catalog, 2) a general Internet search engine, or 3) the library website. ||
 * Unbundling the Big Deal with Patron Driven Acquisition of eJournals. By Maureen Weicher, Tian Xiao Zhang. St. John’s University LibrariesQueens, NY, USA. Paper submitted 6th June for IFLA Conferenec 2011

http://conference.ifla.org/sites/default/files/files/papers/ifla77/164-weicher-en.pdf || Whilst this is to do with ejournals rather than ebooks their token approach to PDA looks interesting ||
 * Problematizing Patron-Driven Acquisitions. Peer to Peer Review.A library is more than a shopping site built to satisfy immediate patron needs.By Barbara Fister, Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN. Library Journal 11 November 2010

FROM THE ARTICLE:-

I think patron-driven ebook acquisitions for an academic library is a terrible idea

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.

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? || Discusses metadata! Comment about 'people who would never shell out $30...' is about motivations || Notes from the user group meeting...(refers to work at Newcastle University (UK) "Let me first explain how PDA works in a nutshell: The library puts a large sum of money in a deposit account with the vendor. The vendor provides records for a large number of e-books, which the library loads into its OPAC. Patrons access the e-books via the OPAC. When the number of patron accesses to any single e-book title reaches a pre-agreed threshold, the library is charged for a perpetual license to that title. It sounds simple, but there were plenty of wrinkles to work out. The main issues they identified included: One other issue that came up was tweaks needed after their first pass: 5 accesses turned out to be not enough as the threshold for purchase – it needs to be 10, while accesses of tables of contents and indexes should not count towards the threshold. Metadata and CKB (Central Knowledge Base) management issues. They covered the current issues with metadata for e-books, and then tossed out ideas for how a Central Knowledgebase might be able to help. Some current concerns include: Some possible areas where a CKB could help: March 10th, 2011 At the 2010 Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA) Conference in Dunedin, Marilyn Fordyce, Information Resources Manager, and Paula Hasler, Collection Development Librarian, at the University of Otago Library presented their experience with the EBL demand-driven acquisition programme. The presentation describes expenditures, statistics, and profiles of users and discusses challenges and benefits of the model. Slides from their presentation, “Demand driven eBook selection : Moving beyond ‘just in time’ collection development” are available to view in pdf format here (//image rich PDF, please be patient with loading//). ||  || January 12th, 2011 Published in a recent edition of the //New Zealand Library & Information Management Journal// is a detailed analysis of the first twelve months of demand driven acquisition with EBL at Open Polytechnic by Geoff Kelly, Collections & Liaison Librarian. The trial was reviewed in December 2009, and as a result the Library decided to continue with Demand Driven Acquisition in 2010. Overall, we are happy with our experience of DDA. We increased the size of the collection that patrons can access by about 300%, and we gave our patrons the discretion to manage their own online borrowing through STLs, while the Autopurchase facility allows staff and students to participate in collection building. Unlike normal print selection, every ebook Autopurchase has the added advantage that a text has been bor- rowed or used at least twice as STLs and at least once more after the Autopur- chase occurs. This compares well with our print and pre-purchased ebook collec- tions, 12% of whose items have never been issued. Usage reports of STLs and Autopurchases can also provide liaison librarians with useful guidance for collec- tion development. The article, “A Year of Demand Driven Acquisition of Ebooks at the Open Polytechnic Library” begins on page 41 of the journal. Access the full article here: @http://www.lianza.org.nz/sites/lianza.org.nz/files/nzlimj_vol_52_issue_no_1_oct_2010_-_web.pdf ||  || January 14th, 2010 At the recent Charleston Conference in November 2009, Jason Price & John McDonald from Claremont College presented “Beguiled by Bananas : A retrospective study of the usage & breadth of patron vs. librarian acquired ebook collections.” Some questions asked inclued, ‘Are user-selected ebooks used less often than pre-selected ebooks?’, ‘Do user-selected ebooks have a narrower audience?’ and ‘Are user-selected collections less balanced?’. This paper provides an evaluative analysis of librarian acquisition vs. patron acquisition of ebooks using actual acquisition data from many libraries. The statistics and discussion were based on data provided by EBL and includes discussion from EBL’s Kari Paulson and Alison Morin. Please take a look at their findings linked here: [|View PDF version of the presentation] __ View Power Point version of the presentation __ ||  || August 19th, 2009 [|Lily] Susan Macicak and Lindsey Schell from the Library at the University of Texas, Austin (UTA), have kindly provided us with the comprehensive case study they presented at the 2008 Annual Charleston Conference. Described as “//experimentation with an environment of controlled risk//“, UTA ran an extensive pilot, opening EBL’s entire catalogue to their students and automatically renting or purchasing ebooks according to emerging patterns of demand. The following slides benefits and challenges associated patron-driven acquisition of ebooks, comparing circulation statistics of ebooks to print books and highlighting the higher accessibility of an ebook version. As one of the first large institutions to trial demand-driven acquisition on such a large scale, this presentation makes for an interesting and informed read. Please click here to view the presentation (PowerPoint) ||  ||
 * **(ExLibris) E-Books Management Focus Group Update and Discussion 2010 (?)**
 * Pre-Selection – which titles to include
 * Matching and analysis – making sure you don’t already own the title
 * Monitoring funds – the money goes FAST
 * Ordering/Invoicing/Access – managing orders
 * Consortial complications
 * Loading and unloading records
 * Assessment and evaluation of the project
 * Integration with other services and products
 * Acquiring records (free vs. paid and problems with redistribution restrictions)
 * Managing records for e-book sets (loading, availability, lack of regular updates, etc)
 * Deletions (Coding records to get them out)
 * Metadata quality issues (Often lacking subjects and summaries, not always AACR2, problematic character coding, general poor quality, etc)
 * Manage records for all subscriptions (standards, efficiency, staff time, timely updating)
 * Pre-requisites for high quality records with “modifiability”
 * Allow for libraries to edit locally when desirable
 * Leverage the connection between CKB and local catalogs || identifies metadata issues. Interesting comments about the role of Knowledge Base....if this were the 'system of record for ebook metadata what then..? ||
 * ** [|Case Study: “Demand driven eBook selection : Moving beyond ‘just in time’ collection development.”] **
 * ** [|Case Study: A Year of Demand Driven Acquisition at the Open Polytechnic Library] **
 * ** [|“Beguiled by Bananas” – A Statistical Analysis of Patron-selected vs.Upfront Acquistion presented at Charleston Conference 2009] **
 * ** [|CASE STUDY: Patron Driven Purchasing at UTA] **