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Location: Home Resources EDUCAUSE Review EDUCAUSE Review Archive ER Volume 45, 2010 Volume 45, Number 5, September/October 2010 The User-Dr

The User-Driven Purchase Giveaway Library

2010 David W. Lewis. The text of this article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialNoDerivs 3.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010): 1011 D AV ID W. L E W IS
David W. Lewis (dlewis@iupui.edu) is Dean of the IUPUI University Library. Comments on this article can be posted to the web via the link at the bottom of this page.

For as long as knowledge has been captured in and distributed as documents, libraries have collected documents in anticipation of their use. As libraries grew larger, they became more complex, more difficult to use, and more expensive. But this was the only viable strategy in a paper-based world, one in which the quality of a library was based on its ability to bring many documents close to the people who might want to use them. Now, of course, the world is different. Most information produced today is captured in digital form, though it may be distributed digitally or as a paper document. Increasingly, the documents originally produced on paper are being converted to digital formats. The Google Books project is the largest, but far from the only, such effort. What this means is that it is easy to imagine a world where all recorded knowledge of significance is stored and available in a digital form. Whereas creating multiple copies and distributing paper documents was hard and expensive, distributing digital documents is fast and easy. A digital copy of a document can be produced as needed at virtually no cost whenever and wherever someone wants to use it. Until recently, the changed production, distribution, and economic structures made possible by the conversion from paper to digital technologies could be only partially applied to books because, while transporting and warehousing paper books is cumbersome, the paper works exceptionally well once it gets into a reader's hands. This has meant that libraries have been understandably reluctant to change their approach to book collections. However, two technologies will soon allow the full potential of digital technologies to be applied to books. The first is the development of reading machines, or e-readers. Although not everyone is enthusiastic, many people find that the current capabilities of reading machines to be an acceptable, and sometimes very satisfactory, alternative to the paper book. The second technology is printon-demand. The ultimate expression of this technology is the Espresso Book Machine, which creates paper books quickly and cheaply one at a time. Thus we have reached the important tipping point where digital files can be read on machines that are nearly as good as paper books and where paper books can be created and delivered nearly as quickly, cheaply, and reliably as digital files. This makes it possible for libraries to radically rethink their fundamental approach to providing documents to users.

A Thought Experiment

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Let us imagine two ways a library might provide books to its users. First let us consider how a typical library today approa to build a book collection. Let's say the library annually purchases 10,000 titles at an average purchase price of $35, that each of these titles is $25, and that the cost of storing and circulating each title is $40 over the life of the book. Thus the t each year would be $1,000,000. Using some reasonable assumptions about book use, we could expect a collection of thi 50,000 circulations over the lives of these titles.1

Now let us consider the radical alternative. Rather than purchasing books, cataloging them, and putting them on shelves in library purchased and produced a book only when a user wanted to use it. Rather than loaning the book to the user, the lib user to keep. Let us assume that the library leases an Espresso Book Machine for $60,000 a year and pays an operator average, books printed on the machine cost $3 (a penny per page for 300 pages). Further, let us assume that the publishe single-user version of its texts for $15 (this is 150% what Amazon currently charges for Kindle editions), that this version user either as a digital file or as a printed book, and that 25 percent of the users want the digital file. Finally, let us assume $1,000,000 to spend each year.

How many books could the library produce and give away annually? Using the above assumptions, the average cost per b is 52,174 books total ($900,000/$17.25): 39,131 paper and 13,043 digital books. It is thus possible to imagine that a "Use Library" model would generate as much use as the traditional library strategy. In addition, users would always find the boo user would permanently own the book, one might argue that it would be more valuable than a book borrowed from the libra highlight text or write in the margins.

Discussion
Doesn't the Library Want the Books Returned?

The short answer is "no." If the book is returned to the library, it has the potential to be used again in the future, but return cataloging and storing costs. Pursuing only the user-driven purchasing part of the strategy generates about two-thirds of t traditional strategy or the user-driven purchase giveaway strategy. Thus, pursuing only half the strategy gets a poorer res

Not Cheap Enough

Although the User-Driven Purchase Giveaway Library creates an arguably better investment than the traditional library, th would likely fail because it will be easier and quicker to use and because nearly any desired book would be available. Dem times what the model proposes as possible.

One downside of the User-Driven Purchase Giveaway Library is that once the promise to provide books has been made a library has an obligation to deliver. Suspending the service midyear because cost or, more likely, demand was miscalculat was exhausted would not be a particularly pleasant outcome. This type of risk is absent in traditional library practice. The Library requires that the library be prepared for "catastrophic success."

What Is Required

There are really only two constraints. The first is the capacity of the Espresso Book Machine. The second, and more impo rightsor, more precisely, the amount by which the library is subsidizing this cost. Two things could be done to reduce the procure these rights. First, it could negotiate a lower price. Second, it could ask users to pay a portion of these costs. The pursued collectively by libraries from multiple institutions, might be productive. The negotiation of a site license in which co would be the best solution. This is a common approach for many vendors providing libraries with other electronic products

Discovery

One persistent claim for a physical collection of books is that it aids in the serendipitous discovery of unexpected and use the book originally sought. Browsing in a physical collection clearly has some value, even though its limitations are often u romanticized. The limitations are clear. A book in a physical collection can be in only one place, even though it can share i other books in many other places. Many of the best books are in circulation and therefore can't be found by browsing. Fin

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acquired a useful book.

Digital systems offer alternatives to browsing. Amazon has a variety of recommendation systems, and Google Book Sear across millions of titles. WorldCat provides a more traditional library catalog approach to discovery for the aggregated co and LibraryThing uses social networking strategies. The end of physical browsing will be lamented by some, but at the end strategies for discovery will be available.

The Library as an Information Subsidy

The User-Driven Purchase Giveaway Library is serving the same purpose that traditional libraries have always served. A the means for communities and organizations to provide a subsidy for information use. Communities and organizations pro understand that left to their own devices, individuals will not pay for as much information as they should to be fully contribu

In a traditional library, the subsidy is used to provide for the building and organizing of a collection of books. Large book co an institutional or community asset, though the long-term commitment to a book collection also creates a large liability. In t justified the liability of a physical book collection. In the easily imagined future, alternative delivery mechanisms call this ju

Conclusion

Ten years from now, the historic corpus of printed books will likely have been converted to digital files. Google will hold the other academic or not-for-profit organizations. Print copies will be stored in long-term print repositories. Both digital and ph and their long-term preservation will be secured. Ten years from now, digital book readers will be common, and print-on-de cheaper. Ten years from now, many publishers will have been forced to find new economic models with the decreased pur models are likely to include open-access models and site licenses. Finally, ten years from now, everyone will expect that a available anywhere and in all the formsdigital or paperthat might be useful.

In light of these changes, it seems to me that the User-Driven Purchase Giveaway Library may be not only likely but inevi

Note

1. For the model used to generate these numbers, see David W. Lewis, "The User-Driven Purchase Give Away Library: A <http://idea.iupui.edu/dspace/handle/1805/2212>.
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Plus ca change (plus cest la meme chose)

SU BM IT T ED BY IN G R ID M ASO N (IN T ER SEC T ) O N JAN U AR Y 5 , 2 0 11 - 3 :1 0 PM .

Ive enjoyed reading this thought provoking article. I agree with Patricia, that selection (or curation) and management co also think this is about change in approach definitely not the death knell of libraries. Presently selection (as I understand collaboratively by liaison librarians with subject experts (academics), with the support of recommending services (libraria academic requests, and book lists (publishers blurbs). So demand driven selection is already in place and isnt new. Wh serviced and David Lewis piece speaks to this well - and - has implications for library collecting all round. The argumen options for reexamining cost models, cost efficiency in overheads and managing the shift from print to electronic in provi collections.

Access as a service and asset building as functions of an academic library could do with further investigation in this sce

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uncertain territory between collecting just-in-time instead of just-in-case is where these two functions of an academic libr economics and practice and services change over time. The services provided for just-in-time collecting are allied to the textbooks and journals, and in the case of textbooks, rapid deaccession. The services provided for just-in-case collectin of a collection as a teaching, learning, research and heritage asset, and cultivated retention. This is all tied into a single in and the value of the purchase changes over time, and demand is only predictable in certain circumstances.

What would happen if the cost of purchasing a library item changed over time (e.g. high to low demand or readily availab management was shared (e.g. remotely hosted or inter-library loaned) or if cost was dependent upon the level of use (e. users) or the nature of the acquisition (e.g. licence for access or archival access)? Imagine this scenario: Student A an to all current journals and books (last 5 years) for download through the benefit of a site licence. Student A and academ works, that cost may or not be absorbed by the library. That work may or may not be owned or managed by the library have the opportunity to request works of any age for the collection at any time for their use, that cost may or may not be this sound radical or does it sound a lot like the status quo?

Academics libraries have been using inter-library loans for a long time to extend access to research materials and suppo could be extended to access works that arent already in an academic library collection, may never be, but that may perm works via print-on-demand at rates lower than that which theyd pay as a citizen (i.e. independent of a library). Im assum cost-efficient to do this within a library service framework otherwise it may be more cost-efficient for libraries to side ste when developing their acquisition policies) and library users to bypass the library all together. Where there is an advant user, i.e. identifying a work that could be acquired for short or long term retention or cost absorbed to a limited extent an service providers (as libraries already do this with subject databases to the advantage of library users). Why else would user get the benefit? If library users want to retain a work and to annotate it, then that gets built into the service model i and/or wider service advantages to this, then why wouldnt an academic library do it?

Academic libraries have the choice to invest in developing tailored user services (and acquisition policies and budgets) already have with interlibrary loans systems and online access to multiple subject database service providers and journa have an opportunity to support that shift in their provision of services and attractive cost models. Weve already seen th the management cost with an increase in cataloguing-in-publication, why not options to buy linked into their online servic acquisition process (or not). David Lewis reference to catastrophic success directly relates to the concept of continu characteristic of library collecting and services. Im inclined to think that the nature of access and collecting always cha wont is that of curation and management. Curation requires someone to oversee at the most basic the relevance of the need, the appropriateness of the service to the users, and the management of those functions within a budget and infras Plus ca change (plus cest la meme chose).

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What we've come to expect

SU BM IT T ED BY PAU L J. KO BU L N IC KY (YO U N G ST O WN ST AT E U N IVER SIT Y) O N O C T O BER 2 6 , 2 0 1 0 - 8 :0 4 AM .

Thanks for the good piece David. You continue to advance the discussion in ways that are essential.
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User-Driven Purchase Giveaway Library

SU BM IT T ED BY PAT R IC IA S. BAN AC H (EAST ER N C O N N EC T IC U T ST AT E U N IVER SIT Y) O N O C T O BER 2 2 , 2 0 1 0 - 7 :3 5 AM .

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In this model, I am not sure the Library as middleman is adding much. I do suggest that the selection function that libraria missing. While many people search for known works, many others do consider that what a library has selected has som involved. There is also the question of whether it is really economical to give away the same popular titles over and ove see much future for libraries.
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