Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
11-5-2009
Abstract
Library acquisitions lore contains a cautionary tale of a patron in a demand-driven environment who spent a huge chunk of the library budget on ebooks about bananas. This story and others like it have been used to perpetuate the argument that demand-driven acquisition will result in collections that don't appeal to a broad audience or are otherwise unbalanced. We apply post-acquisition usage data from multiple libraries to test the hypothesis that patron-acquired versus librarian-acquired collections have different usage profiles. In addition, we analyze their subject profiles to evaluate collection breadth and balance. Our results will help libraries to anticipate the effect of adding a demand-driven component to their ebook acquisition strategy.
Rights Information
© 2009 Jason S. Price and John D. McDonald
Terms of Use & License Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Price, Jason S. and McDonald, John D., "Beguiled by Bananas: A Retrospective Study of the Usage and Breadth of Patron vs. Librarian Acquired eBook Collections" (2009). Library Staff Publications and Research. 9.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/library_staff/9
Comments
XXIX Annual Charleston Conference November 4-7, 2009, 29th Annual Preconferences and Conference Issues in Book and Serial Acquisition.
Previously linked to as http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/u?/lea,175 and http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/u?/lea,177