1. Patron-Driven E-books
The promise and the (potential) pitfalls
Anna Grigson

2. Patron-driven e-books
aka patron-driven acquisition (PDA)
aka demand-driven acquisition (DDA)

3. Patron-driven e-books
• The problem: What’s going wrong with existing business models?
• The promise: What do patron-driven e-books offer?
• The pitch: Patron-driven business models
• The practicalities: Implementing patron-driven e-books
• The promise … and the pitfalls? Does PDA deliver?
• Discussion …

4. Patron-driven e-books
• The problem: What’s going wrong with existing business models?
• The promise: What do patron-driven e-books offer?
• The pitch: Patron-driven business models
• The practicalities: Implementing patron-driven e-books
• The promise … and the pitfalls? Does PDA deliver?
• Discussion …

5. The problem
£ User reads book Everyone happy
Library pays Book made
for book available
Book not used Librarian unhappy

6. The problem
Book available User happy
User looks for book
Book not available Everyone unhappy

7. The problem
what what
40% library users ???
= waste has want = unsatisfied
customers

8. Patron-driven e-books
• The problem: What’s going wrong with existing business models?
• The promise: What do patron-driven e-books offer?
• The pitch
• The practicalities
• The promise … and the pitfalls?
• Discussion …

9. The promise
£
Book made available IF user reads book Usage triggers payment

10. The problem
what what
library users
has want

11. The promise
what library has
= what users want

12. The promise
what what
0% library users
waste has want

13. The promise
 Automatic processes
save library staff time
£
what what
library users
has want
 Users get ‘just in time’  Librarians get better value  Create a collection
access to the content by removing the need for which is a better fit
they want ‘just in case’ purchase to user needs

14. Patron-driven e-books
• The problem
• The promise
• The pitch: Patron-driven business models
• The practicalities
• The promise … and the pitfalls?
• Discussion …

15. Patron-driven e-books
1. Purchase model
2. Rental (or loan) model
3. Capped pay-per-view
4. Evidence based selection

16. The pitch: Purchase model

17. The pitch: Purchase model
Step 1: E-books made available to users
Supplier platform Library catalogue
Library sets selection criteria Supplier de-duplicates against
• price • publisher e-books already owned by library
• subject • language
• date • readership

18. The pitch: Purchase model
Step 1: E-books made available to users
Supplier platform Library catalogue
£
Supplier activates Library adds selected books
selected e-books on to catalogue and/or
their platform discovery system

19. The pitch: Purchase model
Step 2: Users read e-books and trigger purchases
Supplier platform Library catalogue
£
Some use for free Further use automatically triggers purchase
• First user • Second user
• Reading for a few minutes • Reading / viewing for 10+ minutes
• Viewing a few pages • Printing or downloading

20. The pitch: Purchase model
Step 3 (optional): PDA stopped

21. The pitch: Purchase model
Step 3 (optional): PDA stopped
Supplier platform Library catalogue
Supplier stops access to Library deletes catalogue records
any books not purchased for any books not purchased

22. The pitch: Purchase model
• Collection of 100 books
• List price £10 each
Number Number Purchase Fee per Total cost
of books of uses model book
100 books 0 0% £ 0 £0

23. The pitch: Purchase model
• Collection of 100 books
• List price £10 each
Number Number Purchase Fee per Total cost
of books of uses model book
100 books 0 0% £ 0 £0
20 books 1 0% £ 0 £0

24. The pitch: Purchase model
• Collection of 100 books
• List price £10 each
Number Number Purchase Fee per Total cost
of books of uses model book
100 books 0 0% £ 0 £0
20 books 1 0% £ 0 £0
10 books 2 100% £10 £100

25. The pitch: Purchase model
• Collection of 100 books
• List price £10 each
Number Number Purchase Fee per Total cost
of books of uses model book
100 books 0 0% £ 0 £0
20 books 1 0% £ 0 £0
10 books 2 100% £10 £100
5 books 3 0% £ 0 £0

26. The pitch: Purchase model
• Collection of 100 books
• List price £10 each
Number Number Purchase Fee per Total cost
of books of uses model book
100 books 0 0% £ 0 £0
20 books 1 0% £ 0 £0
10 books 2 100% £10 £100
5 books 3 0% £ 0 £0
10 books £10 £100

27. The pitch: Rental model
coming soon

28. The pitch: Rental model
Step 1: Library + Supplier set up collection to offer to users
Same as
purchase model

29. The pitch: Rental model
Step 2: Users read e-books and trigger purchases
Supplier Library
£
£
First user triggers Second user triggers
temporary loan at purchase at full price
% of full price

30. The pitch: Rental model
Step 3 [optional]: Any books not purchased are withdrawn
Same as
purchase model

31. The pitch: Rental model
• Collection of 100 books
• List price £10 each
Number Number Rental Fee per Total cost
of books of uses model book
100 books 0 0% £0 £0

32. The pitch: Rental model
• Collection of 100 books
• List price £10 each
Number Number Rental Fee per Total cost
of books of uses model book
100 books 0 0% £0 £0
20 books 1 10% £1 £20

33. The pitch: Rental model
• Collection of 100 books
• List price £10 each
Number Number Rental Fee per Total cost
of books of uses model book
100 books 0 0% £0 £0
20 books 1 10% £1 £20
10 books 2 100% £ 10 £100

34. The pitch: Rental model
• Collection of 100 books
• List price £10 each
Number Number Rental Fee per Total cost
of books of uses model book
100 books 0 0% £0 £0
20 books 1 10% £1 £20
10 books 2 100% £10 £100
10 books £11 £120

35. The pitch: Rental model
Number of uses Purchase model Rental model
Cost per book £10 £11
Total spend £100 £120
But not a like-for-like comparison
• Definition of ‘use’ may differ, so may get more use of a
rental e-book before triggering a payment
• Rental models often allow the library to choose how
many rentals are made before a book is purchased

36. The pitch: Rental model
• Collection of 100 books
• List price £10 each
• Purchasing on 3rd use
Number Number Rental Fee per Total cost
of books of uses model book
100 books 0 0% £0 £0
20 books 1 10% £1 £20

37. The pitch: Rental model
• Collection of 100 books
• List price £10 each
• Purchasing on 3rd use
Number Number Rental Fee per Total cost
of books of uses model book
100 books 0 0% £0 £0
20 books 1 10% £1 £20
10 books 2 10% £1 £10

38. The pitch: Rental model
• Collection of 100 books
• List price £10 each
• Purchasing on 3rd use
Number Number Rental Fee per Total cost
of books of uses model book
100 books 0 0% £0 £0
20 books 1 10% £1 £20
10 books 2 10% £1 £10
5 books 3 100% £ 10 £50

39. The pitch: Rental model
• Collection of 100 books
• List price £10 each
• Purchasing on 3rd use
Number Number Rental Fee per Total cost
of books of uses model book
100 books 0 0% £0 £0
20 books 1 10% £1 £20
10 books 2 10% £1 £10
5 books 3 100% £ 10 £50
5 books £ 12 £80

40. The pitch: Purchase vs rental model
Books Books Cost Total
viewed owned per book costs
Purchase 20 10 £10 £100
Rental x 2 20 10 £11 £120
Rental x 3 20 5 £12 £ 80

41. The pitch: Purchase vs rental model
Books Books Cost Total
viewed owned per book costs
Purchase 20 10 £10 £100
Rental x 2 20 10 £11 £120
Rental x 3 20 5 £12 £ 80
Rental x 4 20 2 £13 £ 55

42. Comparing costs
Books Total Purchase Rental Rental
owned costs costs costs costs %
Purchase 10 £100 £100 £0 0%
Rental x 2 10 £120 £110 £10 8%
Rental x 3 5 £ 80 £ 60 £20 25%
Rental x 4 2 £ 55 £ 26 £29 53%

43. The pitch: Capped pay-per-view model
Step 1: Collection made available
Supplier Library

44. The pitch: Capped pay-per-view model
Step 2: Users read e-books and trigger purchases
Supplier Library
£ £ 
£ £
Each user triggers If payments add up If payments don’t reach
small payment per to full price of book, full price of book, book is
page / download book is purchased withdrawn at end of deal

45. The pitch: Capped pay-per-view model
 Don’t pay for item until proven high demand (unlike purchase model)
 Don’t pay more than 100% of list price (unlike rental model)
 Could spend 90% of purchase price but still not own a book

46. The pitch: Evidence Based Selection
Step 1: Collection made available
Supplier Library
£
Collection made available Library pays agreed fee
for agreed period in advance

47. The pitch: Evidence Based Selection
Step 2: Users read books
Supplier Library
 
Users have unlimited Librarians can see which
access to whole collection, titles are being used
with no cost per view

48. The pitch: Evidence Based Selection
Step 3: At end of year … EITHER
Supplier Library
 
£
Library pays another Users continue to have Library continues to
fee access to collection for monitor usage
a further year

49. The pitch: Evidence Based Selection
Step 3: At end of year … OR
Supplier Library
 
£
Library reviews usage Books chosen do not Access to other books
and choose which books have to match those with is switched off
to keep, up to value of highest usage
fee paid at start

50. The pitch: Evidence-based selection

51. Patron-driven e-books
• The problem
• The promise
• The pitch
• The practicalities: Implementing patron-driven e-books
• The promise … and the pitfalls?
• Discussion …

52. The practicalities
1. Choosing a model
• Chose rental model
• Set aside £10,000 funding
• Aimed to run pilot for one term, possibly two

53. The practicalities
2. Selecting the books
• Excluded books costing more than £250
• Excluded some languages
• Included all subjects
• Excluded non-academic publishers
 Finding criteria to exclude ‘unsuitable’ books was difficult

54. The practicalities

55. The practicalities
2. Selecting the books
• Excluded books costing more than £250
• Excluded some languages
• Included all subjects
• Excluded non-academic publishers
 Finding criteria to exclude ‘unsuitable’ books was difficult
 De-duplicating against existing e-books was difficult
= 120,000 books

56. The practicalities
3. Loading the records
• Loaded into catalogue in batches of 10,000
• Delay in transfer from library catalogue to discovery system
• Not activated in link resolver

57. The practicalities
4. Setting the thresholds
• Set to purchase on 4th loan
• Each user limited to 3 loans per day
• Length of loan limited to 1 day
• No mediation
• No publicity

58. The practicalities
5. Running the pilot
• First use within 30 minutes of adding records to catalogue
• First purchase within few days
• All funds used within six weeks
• PDA stopped

59. Patron-driven e-books
• The problem
• The promise
• The pitch
• The practicalities
• The promise … and the pitfalls? Does PDA deliver?
• Discussion …

60. The promise and the pitfalls
what what
library users
has want
 Users get ‘just in time’  Create a collection
access to the content which is a better fit
they want to user needs

61. The promise and the pitfalls
Number of titles viewed
Number of titles
viewed for free
565
900 Number of titles
loaned or purchased

62. The promise and the pitfalls
what what
40% library users
= waste has want

63. The promise and the pitfalls
£
Librarians get better value
by removing the need for
‘just in case’ purchase

64. The promise and the pitfalls
Loan vs purchase spend
30%
purchases
70% loans

65. The promise and the pitfalls
High spending on loans = failure?

66. Patron-driven e-books
4%
4% Loans and purchases
Number of titles with 1 loan
15%
Number of titles with 2 loans
77%
Number of titles with 3 loans
Number of titles purchased

67. The promise and the pitfalls
I want to buy
high use books
Purchase model
buys too much
here?

68. The promise and the pitfalls
I want to buy
high use books
Rental model
spends too
much here?

69. The promise and the pitfalls
High spending on loans = success?

70. The promise and the pitfalls
I want to buy
high use books
I’m happy to
pay to rent low
use material

71. The promise and the pitfalls
I’m happy to
just rent …

72. Patron-driven e-books
£
funding still available? book still available?

73. Patron-driven e-books
• The problem
• The promise
• The pitch
• The practicalities
• The promise … and the pitfalls?
• Discussion …

74. Anna Grigson
anna.grigson@rhul.ac.uk
Graphics from fotalia.com
Graphs from crappygraphs.com