What cost and usage data reveals about e-book acquisitions: ramifications for collection development

To better determine how e-book acquisitions might affect future collection development decisions, a team of librarians from the University of Florida (UF) launched a project to assess cost and usage of e-books purchased using three different acquisitions methods: e-books acquired in large publisher packages; single-title e-books selected through firm orders; and e-books purchased through two patron-driven acquisitions (PDA) plans. The cost-usage data were then sorted into three broad areas of subject disciplines--humanities and social sciences (HSS); science-technology-engineering-mathematics (STEM); and medicine (MED)--and the results were reviewed and summarized. The authors compared the cost-usage data of e-books acquired by the acquisitions methods across the three subject areas and describe how the findings are affecting current and future acquisitions, traditional collection management, and budgeting at UF.
The Smathers Libraries has a primary mission to support the wide-ranging research and instructional activities at the University of Florida (UF), a large land-grant university with an annual enrollment of [...]