2018 Charleston Library Conference

Many academic libraries have been transitioning from print to electronic books by purchasing large ebook front file and back file collections. Through two case studies, attendees will learn about the management and assessment of large ebook packages.

In 2016 the University of Toronto Libraries purchased a large collection of backlist titles from Taylor & Francis, with a commitment to purchase frontlist titles in the coming years. Subsequently, subject selectors had the option and responsibility to decide whether to continue purchase print copies. Having the ability to buy both formats gave the library the opportunity to make a more gradual transition and to gather evidence about how the library community chose when both print and electronic books are on offer. In this presentation we will share the data of the year after the big ebook collection purchase. Which print books did the library continue to purchase? Which books where used in which format? Did the presence of the electronic collection drive the use of the print? Attendees will learn how users behave when confronted with a choice of formats, and how this behavior differs across subject areas. For libraries that lack the resources to maintain multiple formats, the data may prove a useful tool in managing their own print-to-digital transitions.

The NCSU Libraries will demonstrate a method to measure the performance of ebook packages over time; determining the performance of frontlist and backlist purchases to inform future decisions to update the collection. With publishers having dozens of collections, projects must be able to scale up to effectively analyze performance and value. This presentation will demonstrate a scalable analysis framework that can be implemented using Python or R. This session will be unique in that we will step through the code and visualizations using Jupyter Notebooks to apply the analysis to several years of Elsevier eBook packages. All code from the framework is made available on GitHub and can be modified and reused to suit a library’s particular analysis needs.