Levine-Clark, Michael, and Christopher C. Brown, “Does Format Matter? Comparing the Usage of E-Books and P-Books,” Charleston Conference, Charleston, S.C., November 9, 2012.

1. Does Format Matter? Comparing
the Usage of E-Books and P-Books
Charleston Conference
November 9, 2012
Michael Levine-Clark
Christopher C. Brown

2. Methodology

3. Duke University Press
• Added October 2008
• Loaded MARC records December 2008
• Purchase all e/p
• 1,378 e-books
– Frontlist approximately 120 per year
– Backlist
• 2,175 p-books
• 841 in both formats

4. The Data
• Gathered circ data
– Through December 2008
– Each subsequent December (2009-2011)
– Cumulative
• Compiled e-book use data
– At end of each year, 2009-2011
– For each year

5. Apples and Oranges
• pBook checkouts
– Undergrad: 3 weeks
– Grad: 10 weeks
– Faculty: 1 year
– Potentially many uses per checkout, and some
when deciding to checkout
• eBook use
– One time in the book is one use

6. About Discovery and Data
• Discovery through catalog records
• Data merger issues:
– Title variations
– ISBN complexities
– Multi-volume issues

7. E and P Typically Pattern Together in
Results
Classic
Catalog
Encore (next-gen)
Catalog

8. Data Difficulties: Title Variations
Catalog Record Vendor Record
Series used with title The Sri Lanka reader : World Readers : Sri
history, culture, Lanka Reader : History,
politics / John Clifford Culture, Politics
Holt, ed.
Series used with title Julia Child's The French Spin Offs : Julia Child's
chef / Dana Polan. The French Chef
Word renderings Present tense : rock & Present Tense : Rock
roll and culture and Roll and Culture
Spaces Percussion : drumming, Percussion: Drumming,
beating, striking Beating, Striking
Vendors and catalogers don’t necessarily agree on title formation.
This makes matching on title impossible.

9. More Title Variations
Catalog Record Vendor Record
Gremlin characters Affective communities : Affective communities:
(diacritics) anticolonial thought, fin-de-anticolonial thought, Fin-De-
si├ ¿cle radicalism, and the SiFcle radicalism, and the
politics of friendship politics of friendship
Presence/Absence of The life and traditions of the
Life and Traditions of the Red
Subtitles Red man Man : A rediscovered
treasure of Native American
Literature
Title Discrepencies A coincidence of desires : Coincidence of Desire :
anthropology, queer studies, Anthropology, Queer
Indonesia Studies, Indonesia
Translated Titles Desencuentros de la Divergent Modernities :
modernidad en América Culture and Politics in
Latina. English, Divergent Nineteenth-Century Latin
modernities : culture and America
politics in nineteenth-
century Latin America

10. Data Difficulties: Multiple ISBNs

11. Data Difficulties: ISBN 10? ISBN 13?

12. Data Difficulties: ISBN Irregularities
Note the ISBN10 with ISBN 13, the parentheses, and the
multiple ISBN numbers

13. Data Solution: Create an ISBN 9
ISBN 9 eliminates the ISBN 13 – 978 prefix
and the final check-digit, creating a useable
match-point, in cases where the electronic
and print versions agree on base ISBN.

14. Data Difficulties: Too Many
Sources
• Usage reports include only titles that are
actually used
– Needed to pull in unused titles from elsewhere
• Different formats

15. Data Methodology using Microsoft Access
• Get annual use stats of e-books from vendor
• Get master list of e-titles from vendor.
• Derive ISBN9 for each list for proper overlay
• Overlay annual use stats onto master list of e-books
• Get circ stats for print books from ILS
• Derive master list of all print titles from ILS
• Derive ISBN 9 for each p title.
• Overlay annual circ stats onto master list of p-books
• Merge circ and use data together

16. Data Conclusions
• Microsoft Access for overlays; Microsoft Excel
for analysis
• Overlay on title is nearly impossible
• Better standards are needed – a single ISBN,
please!
• Deriving an “ISBN9” was the only way to get
anywhere, but even this was far from perfect

17. Usage

18. eBooks
• COUNTER
– 502 titles used (36.7%)
– 27,640 uses
• 55.1 per title used
• 20.2 per title
– 866 titles not used
• User Sessions
– 503 titles used
– 2,585 sessions
• 5.1 per title used
– 874 titles not used

19. eBooks
• Pages Viewed
– Average: 49.4
– Highest: 1,933
– Median: 11
• Pages Printed
– 56 titles
– Average: 34.4 pages
– Highest: 289
– Median: 18

20. pBooks
• 1,435 titles used
(66.0%)
• 4,196 checkouts (2,727
before Dec 2008)
– 2.9 per title used
– 1.9 per title
• 740 titles not used

21. Most Used eBooks (COUNTER)
• Poor People’s Politics: Peronist Survival Networks
and the Legacy of Evita (2001)
– 2,174 uses (all in 2011)
– 4 checkouts (1 before Dec 2008, 1 in 2010, 2 in 2011)
– 101 user sessions (#5)
– 190 pages printed (37%)
• Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global
Transformations (2006)
– 1,003 uses (824 in 2010)
– 4 checkouts (2 before Dec 2008, 1 in 2010, 1 in 2011)
– 15 User Sessions (#24)
– 0 pages printed

22. Most Used eBooks, User Sessions
• Date Which Will Live (2003)
– 185 User Sessions (all in 2011)
– #20 on COUNTER list (305 uses)
– 2 checkouts
– 50 pages printed (16%)
• Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe (2006)
– 158 User Sessions (155 in 2011)
– #25 on COUNTER list (256 uses)
– 8 checkouts
– 74 pages printed (18%)

23. Most Used pBooks
• Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and
Planning (1993)
– 37 checkouts (36 before Dec 2008)
– 9 uses of the e-version
– 2 user sessions, 0 pages printed
• Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical
Anthropology (1997)
– 24 checkouts (21 before Dec 2008)
– 14 uses of the e-version (11 in Dec 2008)
– 5 user sessions, 0 pages printed

24. Dual Format Use
• 325 titles used in both formats
– 20,619 e-book uses
• 63.5 per title used
– 1,874 user sessions
• 5.8 per title used
– 1,229 p-book checkouts (743 before Dec 2008)
• 3.8 per title used
– 40 titles with pages printed (out of 56)
• 36.9 pages per title used
– 56.3 pages viewed on average

25. P Used, E Not
• 364 titles
– 952 checkouts
• 2.4 per title used

26. E Used, P Not
• 177 titles
• 7,021 uses
– 39.7 per title
• 711 user sessions
• 6,556 pages viewed
– 36.8 per title
• 16 titles with pages
printed
– 28.1 per title

27. E-Book Usage

28. E-Book Usage

29. P-Book Usage

30. How Closely Are P/E Usage
Linked?

31. Increased Checkouts, 2008-2011
• For titles available at the start of the project
(Dec 2008), how many more checkouts were
there by Dec 2011?
• Was that increase linked in any way to e-
usage?
• Was it linked in any way to type of e-usage?

32. Increased Checkouts 2008-2011
• 1,057 titles with increased checkouts
• 707 had no e-availability
• 192 also had e-use
– 75.6 uses per title
– 7.2 user sessions per title
– 65.4 pages viewed per title
• 158 had no e-use

33. Observations
• Use of E doesn’t seem to lead to use of P
• Use of P doesn’t seem to lead to use of E
• If both formats are used,
– they are both used at a higher rate than average
– They have greater meaningful use as e-books
• Pages viewed
• User sessions
• These patterns even more significant for e/p
usage when p usage increased over time

34. Thoughts
• If dual format usage is higher by all measures,
does this mean that people’s preference is for
good content, not format?

35. Further Questions
• Might there be differences
– By subject?
– By date?
• How does discovery play in?

36. Thank You