Rethinking Monographic Acquisitions in a Large Academic
Library: Challenges and Benefits
Trish Chatterley and Denise Koufogiannakis
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?
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