Building a Digital Reference Collection at Washington University

Libraries

Reference Collection Conversion : Mandate

September 2007 Dean requested an 90% reduction of 12,000 volume Reference collection

Asked to ID the most important print titles and look for electronic counterparts to them

One-to- one conversion concept versus buying electronic collections

Budget $50,000 +/-Required completion March 2008

What We Learned: Librarians

eBook monographs often become yearly subscriptions

to the latest edition - often

eBook pricing varies from institution to institution

it is very time consuming to gather this information

eBooks individually cost 1.5 times more than the print edition – for multiple user access

Ebook collections vs. purchasing individual ebooks

select some excellent publishers that offer ownership over time increase your purchase of titles

What We Learned: Librarians

eBook collections select some excellent publishers that offer ownership over time increase your purchase of titles

eBook – individual titles select these as needed a try to build collections in an

interface out of them

Interoperability factor you will end up with ebooks in multiple platforms huge issue for user

What We Learned: Librarians

You need to reeducate self to do reference work if you familiar with using print sources

no close proximity to print works no visual cues of book on shelves it is easy to forget once familiar titles

• ALA Guide to Reference online – mitigates memory loss

Need to devise methods of taking advantage of online environment

need to concentrate and diffuse ebooks need to organize them for librarians as primary user

What We Learned: Librarians

Traditional review literature does not do a good job of evaluating ebooks or ecollections

Booklist – November issue compares 5 collections Choice Reviews Online – annual issue new electronic

resources – vendor list College and Research Library News

Go to online sources for info- blogs, newsletters

Additional methods of comparing sources ask vendor trial side-by-side

• take a set of questions through each ebook or ecollection

What We Learned: the User

eBooks don’t know very much about how students or faculty use

them can get usage statistics from vendors/publishers

What We Learned: Librarians

Advertise and market ebooks in library blogs, emails, and newsletters in multiple places on website & research guides put into federated searching software put into catalog – MARC records demo them to students and faculty

eFormat and print format – some common issues

users to do not know an ebook exists users do not know what content is present in the ebook users do not know how to use them – per se

Questions for Vendors

Content Questions

1. Is the ebook missing print content?Illustrations, graphs or tables, index?

2. Is there unique content in the ebook?

3. Can I repurpose the content?

Questions for Vendors

Content Questions

4. Can I highlight, bookmark, print, copy, and/or save the content?

5. How often do you update content?

6. Is a perpetual archive guaranteed, and can I have a local copy?

Questions for Vendors

Interface – Cataloging – Statistics Question

7. Is the interface user friendly? Clarity of help menus and user guides?

8. What unique tools are available?Searching features? Citation formats?

Questions for Vendors

Platform – Access – Ownership Questions

9. Are platform fees one time or annual?

10. Is access by IP Address? 11. Can I pay for one user access? Multiple user access?

Questions for Vendors

Interface – Cataloging – Statistics Questions

12. Do you offer MARC records? What fields are included? Excluded?

13. Do you offer usage statistics? What is measured?Clicks? Search terms? Duration of use?

Adapted from “Buying Ebooks” by Heather Wicht Netconnect Spring 2006

The Process: Step 1

Ran a list of all titles in Reference collection in call number order

Sent out an email to 17 Subject librarians with the list of all titles as an attachment

Requested subject librarians to ID books to stay in collection to relocate to another location to indicate circulating or non-circulating status

Student created an Excel file of titles to remain in Reference collection and titles to move

The Process: Step 2

Ran a list of 200 + standing order titles received in Reference and put it in Excel

bulk of our yearly titles to convert were standing orders

Evaluated titles to cancel to look for in an electronic formatto keep in print if not available electronically

Information needed on each title price holdings dates multiple subscriptions historical value of information

Step 3

Determined which standing order/serials titles were available as ebooks searched publisher/vendor sites• searched WorldCat• contacted sales reps

If ebook available analyzed variables Older editions – availability

no availability must purchase as back file additional cost and subscription based only

Step 3: Continued

If ebook available analyzed variables – continued Access fees

separate fee for each title single fee for each title (Oxford)

Did not trial most titles time constraints to meet April deadline good idea for comparison between vendors/publishers

The Process: Step 4 & 5

Record changes to 11, 225 volumes were made

Errors and anomalies discovered bibliographic and holdings information titles and volumes without barcodes missing titles found spine label errors

Shelving Staff integrates 9,000 volumes into General Stacks

major shifting necessary