Primed for Patron-Driven Acquisition: A Look at the Big Picture

Abstract

The development of patron-driven acquisition (PDA) as a viable collections practice is encouraging many academic libraries to be proactive about sharing significant collection development responsibilities with their patrons. The adoption of PDA represents a challenge to some longheld understandings about libraries and collections, however, and some libraries are still assessing this option. Further, questions about PDA and its fit with academic libraries are just now being answered. An examination of some of the shifting understandings in this area of librarianship and their relation to PDA provides a snapshot of the big picture, which may assist libraries with the decision-making process.

PDA Consortium Style

“…4 For academic librarians who are weighing the feasibility of initiating a PDA program at their institutions, Dahl, in her 2012 article, provides an overview that addresses the issues surrounding selection control, collection building, and the evolving definition of a library's purpose in terms of preservation of materials versus access to them. 5 In general, the literature covering PDA reviewed here is focused largely on the rationales behind it and the collection development strategies that support it. To date, little has been written about procedures for cataloging e-books that are available through a PDA model, although several authors have discussed the matter in broad terms.…”

Don’t Fear the Reader: Librarian versus Interlibrary Loan Patron-Driven Acquisition of Print Books at an Academic Library by Relative Collecting Level and by Library of Congress Classes and Subclasses

“…7 As Dahl has summarily put it, the arguments against PDA "suggest it is shortsighted and allows collections to be developed based on current needs, trends, and hot topics." 8 This apparently not uncommon attitude no doubt led one PDA survey respondent to adamantly assert, "PDA cannot function as the primary collection-shaping device for any research library that hopes to fulfill research needs in the future," and may have prompted Rick Anderson, arguably one of PDA's stronger advocates, to similarly quip in a recent online dialogue, "If your goal is to build a great collection, then PDA is clearly no way to go about it." 9 Certainly, where patron behavior is concerned, there has been some cause for concern evidenced both in the wider interlibrary loan (ILL) literature, more generally, and in the recent PDA literature, specifically.…”