126The 'big deal' approach to acquiring e-books: a usage-based study This paper presents the results of an analysis of COUNTER e-book usage reports for SpringerLink e-book collections purchased since July 2008 at the University of Liverpool. The usage reports were augmented with contextual title-level information drawn from Springer's eBooks Title List. The combined data was used to study how usage of e-books is influenced by factors such as the subject area, the year of publication and the length of time since the collection was acquired. Analysis was performed to simulate the effects of user-driven purchasing to determine whether this model could apply to this type of content.The study concludes that this 'big deal' approach has worked well: all but one of the subject areas have been well used, the number of unused titles continues to diminish each year, older titles continue to attract significant usage, and the cost-per-use is relatively low.The challenge remains to find pricing models that allow more libraries to acquire e-book collections when budgets may be largely committed to journals. TERRY BUCKNELL Electronic Resources Manager University of Liverpool Serials -23(2), July 2010Terry Bucknell The e-book 'big deal': a usage-based study 127 About Springer e-booksSpringer e-books are sold in 12 (formerly 13, but Birkhäuser Architecture has recently been sold) annual subject collections, with each year's collections containing around 3,500 titles. From 2005 forward all Springer book titles have been published online as well as in print. The collection is strong in STM subjects plus business and management, with a smaller number of titles in other humanities and social science subjects. The e-book collections are characterized by a high proportion of research monographs, contributed volumes and conference proceedings but also include textbooks and major reference works. They are mainly aimed at researchers from the advanced undergraduate level upwardsThe SpringerLink platform presents e-book chapters alongside e-journal articles on a single interface. Each chapter is a PDF file that may be viewed, downloaded or printed in its entirety. MARC records are provided for each collection from 2005 onwards, and COUNTER-compliant usage reports are provided. It is notable that the use of Springer e-journals increased significantly between 2008 and 2009, even after excluding the usage of an additional collection that was added to Liverpool's big deal in 2009. This suggests that having access to e-books on the same platform as e-journals does have an inflationary effect on the usage of the e-journals. This will be closely watched to see if this pattern continues into 2010 and also if there are similar effects on other combined-content platforms. Results of e-book usage statistics study Overall use of e-books Use of e-books by book type Year of publicationOne major area of interest was the longevity of interest in scientific e-books: would they cease to be of much interest once they were more than a few years old? Figur...
The University of Liverpool (UoL) has been subscribing to and purchasing e-book packages since 2006. This article describes UoL's experiences of evaluating the use and value of such packages, and considers whether alternative purchasing strategies -single-title selection (also known as 'firm orders'), patrondriven acquisition (PDA) or evidence-based selection (EBS) -might offer a more cost-effective way to meet users' needs. The discussion is informed by evidence from the University of Liverpool COUNTER usage statistics and includes modelling of the costs that might result from observed usage patterns if a PDA purchasing model were applied. Criteria for evaluating the success of e-book packages are discussed, including a consideration of how value for money can be calculated for different e-book purchasing models. An outline is provided of the implications for managing acquisitions budgets when e-book collections form part of the acquisitions strategy.Buying by the bucketful: a comparative study of e-book acquisition strategiesRevised and expanded article updating on a presentation originally given at the 34th UKSG Conference,
Only simple statistical analysis, using MS Excel and COUNTER‐compliant usage reports, is required to calculate performance metrics for Big Deals. Big Deal e‐fees themselves are a relatively small proportion of journals expenditure, so when budget cuts need to be made, most savings have to be made by cancelling individual journal subscriptions. However, many individual subscriptions are tied by the non‐cancellation clauses that are an inherent part of most Big Deals and so cannot be cancelled unless the Big Deal is cancelled first. Typically, half of all downloaded articles are in the unsubscribed portion of the Big Deal. Thus it is impossible to make even moderate cuts in journals budgets without inflicting serious damage to an institution's access to journal articles, with serious implications on research. Both libraries and publishers benefit from the Big Deal, so it is essential that pricing remains affordable. Libraries may need to educate their funders to ensure that they continue to receive adequate funding for Big Deals.
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